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Something told me that this trip wasn't going to be easy when I learnt that I could not travel to the east of Chad without a special permit, and that permit could only be collected on arrival in the capital, N'Djamena. "But don't worry," said my fixer in Chad, "it will be ready in time. I'll bring it to your hotel when you get here on Sunday morning". I became even more worried when the man who gave me these reassuring words suddenly stopped answering his mobile phone just days before my flight to Chad - he disappeared from the face of the Earth. All I could do was hope for the best - I feared the worst. My problem was that I couldn't hang around in Chad for days on end waiting for this permit to arrive: I had only a week to land in the capital, travel six hundred miles across some of the hottest, most inhospitable terrain on Earth, interview scores of traumatized refugees in isolated camps and then head back again. This wasn't the result of some tyrannical deadline set by my editor Kevin Marsh or a wish to beat some rival hack to the story, but the result of a demand by my wife. After several years of watching me depart for some of the world's darkest and dodgiest places, and then failing to reappear for numerous children's birthdays, anniversaries and long-arranged dinner dates, Mrs T. was putting her foot down. Our family was due to go on a holiday to Greece, and I was to be on that flight: no excuses, no missed planes or sudden developments - the line was drawn.
When me and my producer arrived in the capital N'Djamena, one mystery was solved. The reason why our fixer had suddenly stopped answering his mobile phone, was that all lines had been cut by the country's president, following a failed military coup just a few days earlier. Fortunately though, our man phoned our hotel before he arrived to say he was coming over that evening. He kept his word about that, but not about the permit he was supposed to bring with him. There had been a "complication" he said, before adding, "but I will have it for you by 10am tomorrow". 10am came and went, with no sign of either our friendly fixer or the permit he'd promised. We staggered off into the blistering heat to see if the United Nation's office of UNICEF could help.
The UN's children's charity had originally offered to get us this permit themselves due to their interest in us highlighting the plight of the refugees in the East. "I'll have it for you by lunchtime," said UNICEF'S cheery press officer and we sped back to our air-conditioned hotel full of fresh promise. But it was to be another two whole days before this elusive permit finally fell into our sweaty hands - in the end thanks to UNICEF. Given that our flight for London left on Saturday night we had just three days to complete the whole trip - edit and write two big reports and this often in sweltering temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius.
Given the awful experiences of the refugees we met from Darfur my little race against time did seem a trifle piffling. Around 180,000 of them had fled into Chad after witnessing friends and relatives being killed, raped or robbed by gangs of Arab militia. Some were even forced to leave their children behind so terrible was the disorder and panic.
What conditions are the living in?
The refugees describe how they .
for the alleged ethnic cleansing?
Amnesty International believe .
Their tales were so extraordinarily horrific that I forgot all about matrimonial pleasures or holidays in the sun: that is, until I got a call from my wife. She was just checking. You know how it is - just finding out how things were going. For this read: "will you be back in time?" Only one answer was required.
We finally arrived back in N'Djamena to a flurry of requests from 91热爆 programmes for interviews and bulletin reports on what we'd seen out East. These over, it was time to compile my reports and then board the plane for the ten hour journey back to London. Most of which time I spent furiously scribbling in a frantic bid to have my dispatches finished by the time the plane touched down.
The next day I joined my family on a flight to Greece basking in a self-anointed glow. I had completed my rigorous assignment and still kept my word to my wife. The horrors of Chad were behind me and now it was time to relax, get into a holiday mood and resume my role as a full-time husband and father, for the next seven days at least anyway. But soon after arriving in Greece my mobile went. It was Gavin Allen, one of the Today programme's Assistant Editors: "Hi Mate! I don't know what you're up to now but any chance of doing a newsletter for our listeners about your trip to Chad?"
By the way, during the entire period of our frenzied stay in Eastern Chad which involved passing numerous checkpoints not a single official showed even the slightest interest in our treasured permit. I've still got it, should you ever need one!
Mike
on our website.
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