SKIRMISHER

With its some 200,000 residents, Abéché is the second largest city in Chad after N’Djamena. Nonetheless, there is not a single paved road here. The omnipresent sand and dust create the impression that the town is located on the edge of the desert, even though the Sahara is still another 300 kilometers to the North. Abéché is a commercial center: the point of departure for various routes that lead through the desert to Libya. But the city is also the base of operations for the countless relief organizations that attend to the approximately 230,000 refugees from Darfur and the allegedly over 100,000 internally displaced Chadians in the Southeast. The smart four-by-fours of the aid workers provoke the envy of the locals, of course. From time to time, they are robbed or stolen. The vehicles disappear and then turn up again being used by the army or by the “Toros-Boros,” as the locals call the Darfur rebels.

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