KEY POINTS:
CHAD - solitary metal signpost indicates the point where the Central African Republic meets Chad. There is nothing on either side of this endless stretch of dirt highway to indicate any difference between one desperately poor central African state and the other.
But the relief that travellers feel
when they pass the Frontiere Tchad sign - sponsored by a local brewery - is palpable.
With the family's entire belongings strapped to the back of three donkeys, Fadimatou Fanta and her four sons skirt around the collapsed bridge and scrabble up the embankment to safety. They have walked for seven days and hundreds like them are arriving in Bekoninga every week.
It is a pattern repeated across the frontier between the Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad.
That so many people are desperate to leave the republic, the sixth poorest country in the world, and go to Chad, the seventh poorest, indicates the level of the crisis engulfing this forgotten corner of the world.
The republic has become engulfed in a humanitarian crisis of such apocalyptic proportions that one quarter of the population of four million has been affected.
Bandits kidnap children for ransom, rebel groups destroy villages and rape women, and soldiers kill civilians with impunity.
Already 60,000 refugees have crossed into Chad and 30,000 into Cameroon. At least 150,000 are displaced within the republic and humanitarian officials in the region believe as many as one million could soon be on the move.
Most walk, often for 10 days, to reach safety. Others are selling everything they own to buy a place on one of the trucks run by the republic's growing number of people-traffickers.
The shadow of Darfur looms large. The Sudanese region borders the northeast and there has been a sharp increase in ethnically driven attacks in the area. A visiting United Nations team says 40,000 of the area's 200,000 residents have been driven from their homes.
Unidentified aircraft, rumoured to be Sudanese government planes, have been landing in the barren northeast while Darfur rebels have been using the republic as a camp from which to launch attacks inside Sudan.
In November, Jan Egeland, then the UN aid chief, warned of a "really dangerous regional crisis". The conflicts in Darfur, Chad and the republic were, he said, "intimately linked".
The presidents of Sudan, Chad and the republic agreed at the France-Africa summit in Cannes last week to refrain from supporting rebellions within each other's countries, but few experts believe it will make much difference.
"The situation is dire," says Bob Kitchen, who leads the International Rescue Committee contingent in the republic. It is one of the few international aid agencies working inside the country. "It is very similar to Darfur but this is a forgotten crisis and it is getting worse," Kitchen says.
If it were not called the Central African Republic, few people in the West would have any idea where this poverty-stricken, coup-ridden nation of four million is situated.
Bordering Chad and Sudan to the north and it has had a turbulent history since gaining independence from France in 1960.
The country's diamond and timber wealth has made power a valuable prize, and a succession of military dictators have followed.
Education and health services have collapsed and life expectancy has dropped by a 25 per cent, from 49 in 1995 to 39 today.
Despite the urgent need for humanitarian assistance little has been forthcoming. The UN appealed for the equivalent of NZ$69.5 million in aid for the republic this year but by the end of January, just $260,000 had been collected from member countries.
The first wave of refugees crossed the border into Chad in 2002 following a failed coup attempt by General Bozize. More fled a year later when Bozize staged a successful putsch.
A third group entered Chad in late 2005 and early last year when fighting broke out between rebel groups and government soldiers.
Another influx began at the end of last year as the insecurity in the north increased.
Beneath the shade of mango trees in Bekoninga, a small village a few hundred yards inside the Chad border, dozens of new arrivals huddle in a clearing waiting to be interviewed and processed by officials from the UN refugee agency.
Those waiting include three cousins, 19-year-old Kayo, 15-year-old Isaka and 11 year-old Abdulaye.
Kayo was abducted by a group of 20 armed men and held in the bush. His feet were tied together and he was given nothing to eat. His kidnappers demanded that his father, Tadi Abdul, a cattle owner, pay them in Chad currency, the equivalent of about $2000.
"They told me if my father did not pay the money they would cut my throat," said Kayo.
"I was really afraid they would kill me."
His father says: "I was trying to find the money from everywhere. It took me five days."
The kidnappers returned his son but the next day they came back to their house and took Abdulaye. He was held for a few days as the family tried to raise another ransom - this time for about $3000. When they paid up the kidnappers returned and took Isaka.
But after paying two ransoms - and having lost many of their cattle to bandits - the family struggled to find the ransom. The kidnappers killed Isaka's father and returned the boy.
A truck carrying 80 refugees arrived at the border a few days ago, escorted by soldiers from the republic.
Mothers paid most of what little they had to be taken with their children to the border, with a third of the money going to the military.
Those who have made it say thousands more people are trying to sell everything they own to buy places on the next truck for their children.
Salmania umar is one of those who paid to get out. "I left everything," she says. She is now in a UN camp 65km north of the border.
She says Arabs like her are being attacked by armed groups because they are Muslim. "They are shooting at people as they go to prayers. It has been like this for two months."
Her family had suffered a string of attacks, as insecurity in Paoua deteriorated.
"Last time they came at five in the morning. They fired bullets all over the house. We hid under the bed.
"We had wanted to leave before this, but this was too much. We had to leave immediately."
Other women gather around to tell even more harrowing stories. One points to a bullet wound in her abdomen, another whispers that the attacks caused her to miscarry.
Families have been split up. Husbands have tended to stay in the republic, living in the bush with their cattle and trying to return to their fields at night to work on their crops.
All the women fear the violence will get worse. None want to return home.
At the border, Fadimatou Fanta leads her children into the village and finds a spot under a mango tree. "I am ashamed to be a refugee," she says, "but I don't want my children to be killed by rebels. All the women are leaving my village with their children. They will all come here."
- INDEPENDENT
