ABECHE, Chad – A country in a state of emergency, curfews at midnight, and rumors of rebel offences — our biggest worry was our gear.

Children preparing for their journey back to their families.

Fabien decided, wisely, that our equipment was more important than our personal effects, so we left our own bags behind and rode to the airport in N’Djamena, Chad, with a four-wheel drive packed to the rafters with black gear bags.
 
The last time I was in this airport, someone was trying to take a tiny Antelope with him as hand luggage.  We didn’t have anything quite that exotic.
 
We placed all our bags on the scales and were asked a dreaded question in the broadcast world, “what isn’t critical for your trip?”
 
“Everything is critical!” Fabien replied.
 
The small Bombardier aircraft can’t take excess baggage. But it seems, none of the other passengers planned live shots in remote Eastern Chad, so we had enough slack to squeeze everything on.
 
From the air Abeche looks like a jigsaw puzzle in dust. The plane bumped on the tarmac and we descended into crushing heat.
 
Finally, after three plane rides from Nairobi and three hours of passing through a number of accreditation hoops, we got to Bakana Assalam orphanage in Abeche. The children were sitting under a thorn tree and a shelter.
 
They have just found out that they are going home. Some are too young to understand where they are off to, though.

The Red Cross volunteers were touched by their plight. But they all seemed happy to see them off to their parents.
 
But rumors, some true, some carried away in the dust, keep swirling of rebel incursions and rebel attacks. Still tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow these children will pile on a couple of buses and head due east, across this parched piece of Africa towards Darfur.

The next day, we arrive early at the orphanage to travel with the children to Adre, on the border of Sudan. They are already packing their bags getting ready for their trip home when we get there.

They have been here for more than four months and, in many ways, the town of Abeche seems to have adopted them as their own. But the volunteers are still excited to see the children go. Because they know that they need to go to their families.

We milled around the children to see how they were feeling. A whole host of women crowded around Tahir. He is just 14 months old. The Red Cross workers told us that when Zoe’s Ark went to his village they took his two brothers. But Tahir cried and refused to let them go. So the charity took him with them.

The volunteers started calling Tahir “Sarkozy,” after Nicolas Sarkozy. They say it is because Tahir looks like the French president.

Finally, the governor arrived and after the requisite speeches, we assembled the convoy to leave town.

But driving to Adre isn’t like taking a swing around town. It is a perilous trip into the badlands border region of Chad and Sudan. And as we traveled we got word that there were rebels somewhere in the vicinity. And that could mean any number of groups.

There are Sudanese rebels in this area allied with the Chadian government. There are Chadian rebels who have been looking to oust the Chadian government. There are Chadian military. And then there are just random guys with guns.

So when we get a flat tire in our vehicle, the radiator bursts on the children’s bus and we lose track of the truck carrying supplies for the children, things start to get a little nerve-wracking.

The drive should take around three hours. Five hours into the trip and we are nowhere near our destination.

Then, finally, we hit the outskirts of Adre town itself. Curious onlookers stop on their donkeys and peer over the hardened mud walls.

We head straight to the post office. Mothers ululate excitedly when we get there. But the mothers have to wait because first the men make their speeches. But then a table is brought out and the children and mothers are brought out one by one.

There are Some tearful greetings, but mostly the spirit is killed by the officialdom and the paperwork. But behind the line of onlookers, behind the rubber stamps and signatures, private moments of joy unfold between these mothers and their sons and daughters who were caught up in this international scandal not of their making.

N’DJAMENA, Chad – The Ethiopian Airlines flight banked over the River Chad as fishermen poled their dugouts against the current. The dusty capital, N’Djamena, sits on the edge of the river; Cameroon visible just across its sluggish expanse.

Fabien and I have traveled from Kenya to Chad to follow the journey of over a hundred children from Abeche, in Eastern Chad, to their homes in Adre, on the border of Sudan.

The children sparked worldwide debate and national protest when Zoe’s Ark, a French charity, claimed they were refugees from Darfur. The charity tried to spirit them away to France. But members of Zoe’s ArK were halted at the last minute by Chadian authorities and arrested.

Fighting stopped only a few weeks ago here in the capital. There are sprays of bullet holes in shops, broken glass in buildings, wooden paneling boarding up damaged entrances. And carpet sellers everywhere in the already bustling markets.The rebels came right up to the residence of President Idriss Deby. They call it the “White House.”

There is a state of emergency here and all visitors must register with the police. Residents are under midnight curfew, and Somalia-style “technicals” — improvised armed vehicles — still patrol the streets. Occasional military planes of the European peacekeeping force fly overhead and the whirl of attack helicopters drown out other sounds.