Stop Genocide NowOn January 15, 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement about the developing situation in Burundi. In it, he talked of the “deeply worrying trends” emerging from Burundi and called for urgent investigation into allegations of humanitarian abuses that originated from mid to late 2015. The current escalation of violence began […]
The i-ACT team finally arrives in Kou Kou, the forward operating base for UNHCR in Camp Goz Amer.
For the last nine days, I’ve been going to refugee camps where an overwhelming percentage of them go without proper nutrition, especially the children–during crucial development years. But, I’m going to now whine about my diet during this trip. I can’t take it anymore. For breakfast, at around 7:30am, I eat a granola bar (140 calories), […]
The Governor of the Region de Dila, a large area in Eastern Chad around the town of Goz Beida, drinks Coke Zero. I was lucky that there was more than one in the tray that one of his men brought to the large gathering of officials for what we had thought was going to be […]
Busy N’Djamena day for the team. Busy and good. The streets of this capital city look so different from earlier trips. On my first trip in 2005, NDJ had somewhat of a feeling of the wild wild west, African style. Very few streets were paved, and you saw armed men everywhere. It was also dark […]
We are lucky that we get to visit the camps in person. It is such a privilage to be part of their community. James, G, and I got into a groove here in Camp Djabal. We started to recognize more and more faces each day, and the women of Darfur would come up to us […]
I was about to write, “It seems so long ago that I was planning for the first i-ACT Expedition,” but, it WAS so long ago! It was 2005! Out here, UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and NGOs call our trips, “missions.” It sounds romantic and dangerous. Looking back through our nine missions, there have been […]
4:00am – I woke up way too early and could not go back to sleep. The alarm was set for 5:15 am, so that we could be check-out, out by the door, and ready for pick up by UNHCR driver by 6:00am. But, I woke up at 4:00am! 6:00am – We have checked-out of the […]
Today was a bit of deja vu as we retuned to the UNHCR compound to get our filming permits. We made the best of our wait by interviewing three people working in different but interconnected offices. First we spoke with Delphine Marie who essentially works as the spokesperson for the UNHCR mission in Chad. She […]
N’Djamena (NDJ), Chad is an interesting city, which has changed quite drastically over the last year. Many more streets are paved, and we could see many more lights when we arrived last night. New statues and plazas adorn the capital. Today, fighting jetlag, we headed out early to visit the offices of UNHCR and the […]