REPORTER, (Translation): The people from Gegira, I'm looking for them.

POLICE, (Translation): Gegira is over there, Toumtouma is here.

In February 2004 I entered the village of Gegira just after it had been attacked by government forces. The village was in ruins and deserted, but by chance I met there some of the women who had returned to find their possessions.
I want to find out what happened to them that day and how they are living now. On entering the Am Nabek refugee camp we must first find the village leader of Gegira.

DAWD, (Translation): Is this the way to Gegira, sheikh?

The village leader asked to see the pictures and film I took last year and said he would try and identify the women I was looking for.

VILLAGE LEADER, (Translation): The village is burnt. There’s a foreigner. The last house is Onge’s. This is Geras tree. The palm tree is there. Right. They've destroyed everything. Everything is burnt. They are our people.

Finally, I met Fatima and Fatna, the two old ladies I had filmed the year before.

OMDA, (Translation): The reporter took a photo of you last time and showed it to the UN. Anyone who has rights will get their rights back. For example, they reported your case. Other people will come to give you your rights.

Fatima then decided that separate screenings of my Dateline story should be arranged for the men and the women of Gegira.
This is the first time they have seen Gegira since it was attacked. 200 of their fellow villagers - their wives, brothers and children - are still missing. I was told that many of the women who were caught that day were raped.

WOMAN 1 (Translation): They smashed me on the head. They made me lie down. They burnt me here, on my legs. They made me lie down and they yanked my legs. They burnt me in four spots.

WOMAN 2 (Translation): What can we do? When will they solve our problem? And how? Everyone's dead. What’s there to solve?

Later, Fatima invited me to lunch with her family.

FATIMA, (Translation): Look at him, look at him, Tayreb. Cheer up, be happy and smile. I'm the oldest in Gegira. Yes. I regard them all as my children. Everyone had a lot. They had jewellery here and here. And on their shoulders and here. They had rings and necklaces. More than you can imagine, too much.

Fatima's grandchildren, excited to meet me, took me to their school in the refugee camp.

FATIMA, (Translation): We live as one family here. I'm like a grandmother to all the kids around here. No-one is a stranger. We've known each other for a long time, for very long, always together.

Fatima and Fatna took me around Am Nabek camp to hear other stories from the women of Gegira.

OLD WOMAN, (Translation): When the children hear the airplanes, they run away. They cry when they hear the airplanes. They hide under the trees. The airplanes scare them. They stare at the sky.

WOMAN 2, (Translation): We're going crazy. Our children ran away. We have nothing. Pregnant women miscarried. Men abandoned their children. All the animals died. We have nothing left. We're hoping for help from you and from God.

I accompanied Fatna and Fatima to the water point, where all the women in the camp gather to talk. They wanted to tell me of their grief and their anger at the man they blame, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

WOMAN, (Translation): God punish the killers! Omar Bashir, you’ve cursed us. God is more powerful than you! God is powerful.

On the morning we were due to leave for Darfur, Fatna and Fatima took me to the edge of the camp. Their village is only a day's walk but they are too scared to make the journey. The return of refugees has hardly been mentioned by the international community. It could be many years before they, and millions others like them, can see their homes again.
We now have to find the best way to cross the border into Sudan. Officially there is no longer fighting between government and rebels in Darfur. But I've heard that recently the two main rebel groups have started fighting each other. Out of the distance, there emerged from the trees four armed men. We have no idea whether they will be hostile or let us across the border.
These men are from the JEM or Justice and Equity rebel group, whose leaders have recently aligned themselves with the government. They are convinced we're working for the other rebel group, the SLA, with who they are now at war. They do not let us cross.
I understand now that things are different from my last visit, when the rebel groups had worked together to fight the Sudanese Government. But we're still determined to get into Darfur and a few miles north we cross the wadi that divides Chad and Sudan.
Our first contact is with a Sudanese truck stuck in the sand. We ask them directions and suspect them of running supplies to the rebels.
As we drive, village after village is deserted. This is the reality of Darfur today - a country without its people.
We finally arrive at the village of Faraweya. Here we meet some of the refugees who have remained in Darfur, hiding in wadis and caves.

DAWD, (Translation): Are you scared?

GIRL, (Translation): Of course we are. We hide in the valley.

DAWD, (Translation): Where did you live before?

GIRL, (Translation): Over there.

MAN, (Translation): They dropped a bomb here, over there, in the middle, and three there.

The Sudanese air force has bombed villages throughout Darfur. We found this large, unexploded bomb inside the Faraweya.
An elderly man, who'd also been hiding nearby, showed us the enormous crater formed by another bomb.

OLD MAN, (Translation):: After the foreigners arrived in 1916, Khartoum ruled us. No-one burnt our villages back then. No-one killed anyone. We were grateful to them. Without foreign intervention, they'll finish us off. If you get the opportunity, raise our case with the UN.

I asked the villagers to take me to the site of a massacre they said had taken place here. When the government attacked, they said, the women and children fled to the mountain nearby.

OLD MAN, (Translation): When the villagers escaped with their animals some fled to the border. The unlucky ones who couldn't were rounded up and killed here. The rest they killed over there. Then they went. We prayed for the dead. We couldn't do anything. We couldn't bury the corpses.

I'm probably the first journalist to see evidence of the massacre at Faraweya. The villagers told me that more than 100 people were killed here. Unfortunately, it's just one of countless horrific crimes committed in Darfur that will probably go unpunished. After driving on, we got our first glimpse of the Sudanese Liberation Army, or SLA - the biggest rebel force in Darfur. Around them were parked World Food Program trucks. We could not be sure who they were feeding the refugees or the rebels.
The next morning we woke to find a small SLA attack unit had arrived. We had breakfast with the young men.

YOUNG SLA, (Translation): I thought someone slipped across the border last night, it was one of the guys who arrived the day before. He went over to see a woman. His penis is ready to have another go.

Officially the SLA has agreed to a cease-fire with the Sudanese Government, but these soldiers were getting ready for combat. They would not tell us where they were going, but we suspected they were on their way to fight the JEM rebels we had met the day before.
I asked if I could talk to the SLA leaders about the situation in Darfur and the convoy agreed to escort us part of the way. The SLA has small protected areas and from there they plan their campaign.
This is Musbat, the SLA command in North Darfur. As I waited for the commanders to arrive, I spotted people locked in a cell. Although the SLA denied it, we overheard conversations that these prisoners were from the JEM. The SLA commander explained to me that although they were once allies in their war against the Sudanese Government, the rebel groups have now become bitter enemies.

MAN, (Translation): Let me tell you, if SLA wants to, they will finish JEM off in 24 hours, we forced them to flee. As for our military situation……

MAN 2 (Translation): We’ve solved the problem and it’s over.

Despite the fact that they're now fighting each other, the rebels still blame the government for the ongoing conflict.

DAWD, (Translation): Why is there no peace in Darfur yet?

MAN, (Translation): Peace hasn't prevailed because the Sudanese Government won't give us our rights, rights such as the distribution of wealth, a share in policies, or anything. They deny us our rights, even our basic needs.

I asked the rebels about the African peacekeeping troops, sent by governments who are part of the African Union.

REBEL, (Translation): First of all, they don't have the logistical resources, or the talent to resolve these problems. They’re new. They're also from the Third World, the problems we have here exist in all African countries.

Speaking to the rebels, peace in Darfur seemed to be further away than ever. I wanted to meet up with the African Union force charged with keeping the peace here, so we head back to the border.
This is Tine, a border town split down the middle between Chad and Sudan. We are in the Chad side, where tens of thousands of refugees fled during last year's fighting. It is rumoured that the Sudan side is a ghost town.
Driving me back across the border to Sudan is Bafri, a Ghanaian policeman with the African Union.

BAFRI, POLICEMAN: We feel helpless and we need a stronger mandate, so we can go and do it and then have the case properly investigated. Like we had a case recently, a woman was attempted to be raped, we went to the police, we take the woman there. They were angry that - why the woman should come with the AU? They should come themselves and they said they should report to the military police because those who attempted to rape her are military men. I mean these things does not help.

There are roughly 3,000 African Union troops in Darfur. Their mission is highly controversial. They are charged only with monitoring and observing and have not been able to intervene to stop the killings or rapes.
The 200 police and soldiers in this AU camp come from over 10 different African nations. Each person has a 6-month to 1-year tour of duty. They spend much of the day staving off boredom between the patrols. AU Commander Diallo from Senegal greeted me with a walkabout around his garden.

COMMANDER DIALLO: You know I am trying to have lots of plants here, but it's very difficult. 'Belle de jour', nice day nice every day.
What we are trying to do is to show the population that they can fight against the desert by planting trees.

The local population that Commander Diallo spoke of for his tree-planting experiment have long since fled or been killed. I asked the commander how big was the area of his command.

COMMANDER DIALLO: It is wide, very wide. I can't say.

The area that this AU team of 200 soldiers has been asked to monitor and police is approximately the same size as England.

REPORTER: What are the main problems your boys face in the field?

COMMANDER DIALLO: They have no problem. There is no problem, I think they are doing good.

The Sudanese representative at the camp had very different ideas about the AU.

CAMP REPRESENTATIVE: Now I am back with AU and I have one year with them. Really, I am not saying anything, their mission means to come and help people, but they all sleep, drink, eat, enjoy and watch, and come back and write their reports. What about these people, they come for them. What about these people, what about these people.

That night I met Russian helicopter pilots hired by the AU. Their helicopters have no fuel, so they too practise their gymnastics and play cards.

PILOT 1: There is nothing to do here. This interruption to our work is because of fuel each month. They don't think about storing fuel. They brought a small amount of fuel, they didn't think what will be later.

PILOT 2: Nice place, Sudan. Very nice place.

The next morning the commander invited me to join an African Union patrol. The plan was to head 200km north to Abu Gamra, an area the AU had never visited before and did not know whether government or rebels were in control there. Shortly into the journey we came across some refugees around an abandoned water point.
Travelling on, the convoy quickly got lost. If they couldn't even find their way around Darfur, I wondered how the AU could possibly bring peace. It got worse. Realising they had no translator who could speak the local language, the AU commandeered my translator, Dawd.
We approached the town of Abu Gamra, the soldiers from Senegal made their own spectacular entrance and waited for who would emerge. It was the SLA.

SOLDIER: Our mission, as I say, is to monitor a cease-fire. We are here as humanitarian - and to stop violation of human rights. We are here because we think that you have so much to give us. You've been here for some time and you know what is happening in the area.

What became clear now was that the SLA rebels had not understood a word of what had been said. They did not speak Arabic or English.
Fortunately, we'd been travelling with a representative from the JEM rebels - the man you see in the green beret - and a representative from the Government in Khartoum - the man in the white shirt. These mortal enemies were all now commandeered to interpret for each other.
One could only wonder about the final version the AU commander would write in his report.
Meanwhile, the soldiers from Senegal, responsible for our safety, made tea under a tree nearby. The meeting finished, photo opportunities were taken and I asked SLA commander Jebril what he thought of the AU.

JEBRIL, SLA COMMANDER, (Translation): We don't appreciate anything that they did. We respect the African Union. But they can't stop government militia lootings. They're helpless. Women are being raped in areas under government control. The AU can't protect the citizens.

As we were leaving, we found the area was littered with unexploded bombs. Bodies were everywhere, covered by a thin veil of sand. It seemed to greatly affect some of the AU soldiers.
We returned to the camp through a sand storm which lasted two days. The camp came to a standstill and the soldiers were left with little to do other than watch TV.
I went to find Bafri, the Ghanaian policeman who had first brought me to the camp.

BAFRI: Today you have a baptism of sandstorm! You know this is sacrifice, but we must sacrifice a lot, yes but then, if you think of humanity at large and you think of peace, you have to do some sacrifice and make sure there is peace in the Sudan and Africa as a whole. Africa is being portrayed in the Western media as a terrible place, war and despair. Now the AU has taken this by the horns and we Africans want to solve our own problems. African problem should be solved by Africans, that's what the AU is trying to do.

That night the AU soldiers invited me to their African dinner and disco. It seemed strange to watch this joyous dancing in the middle of Darfur, a land of so much suffering. But who can blame these AU troops for wanting to forget their surroundings. These young men genuinely want Africans to begin to solve Africa's problems, but they are handicapped by their mandate and pitiful force.

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