These were the Arab militias, widely believed to be supported by the current government in a vicious campaign to make life as unsafe as possible for black Africans in the region. An unthinkable two million people had already fled their homes and more than two hundred thousand had died. Two hundred thousand that we knew of.

It was Rwanda all over again. In fact, it was worse. This time the whole world was watching and doing almost nothing to help.

I looked out my porthole window at the Sahel landscape twelve thousand feet below.

It was actually quite beautiful from up here-no civil war, no genocide, no corruption. Just an endless, peaceful stretch of tan, sculpted earth.

Which was a lie, of course.

A beautiful, very diabolical lie.

Because we were about to land in hell.

Chapter 81

AT THE BASE in Nyala, we secured a ride out to the Kalma Camp with a five-truck convoy carrying sacks of grain and crates of F75 and F100 baby formula. Adanne seemed to know everyone here, and I found it interesting to watch her work. Her gracious smile, not her attractiveness, seemed to be her secret. I saw it succeed again and again with people who were overworked and stressed to their limits.

Camp seemed like the wrong word once I actually saw Kalma.

Yes, there were tents and lean-tos and stick-straw huts, but they stretched for miles and miles. One hundred and fifty thousand people lived here. That's a city. And one that was overflowing with unbearable suffering and heartbreak and death by everything from Janjaweed attacks, to dysentery, to childbirth without drugs, and usually without a doctor or midwife.

Around the camp's center were some signs of permanence, at least. A small open-air school was in session, and there were a few walled buildings with corrugated tin roofs, where limited food supplies were still available.

Adanne knew exactly where we should go first. She took me to the United Nations' Commission on Refugees tent, where a young soldier agreed to do some translating for us, although many of the refugees knew bits of English.

The soldier's name was Emmanuel, and he had the same kind of sinewy height, dark skin, and deep-set eyes I'd seen on many of the so-called Lost Boys who had emigrated to DC over the years. Emmanuel spoke English, Arabic, and Dinka.

“Most of the people here are Fur,” he told us as we started down a long dirt avenue. "And eighty percent are abused women.

“Most of their men are dead, or looking for work, or for resettlement,” added Adanne. “This is the most vulnerable city in the world, Alex. No exception. You will find out for yourself.”