CAMP HADITH, WEST DARFUR, APRIL

To the untrained eye, the inhabitants of Camp Hadith might have seemed like any group of refugees the world over-a cluster of lost souls bound by poverty, persecution, and a complete lack of hope. To the untrained eye, they might have seemed tragically the same. But in reality their squalid existence was one of the few things they had in common.

They comprised a strange demographic made up of black Christians from the south, African Muslims from the north, and poor Arabs from the slums outside Khartoum. They came from a multitude of tribes, which was arguably more important than their religious differences given the lack of a single national identity in Africa’s largest country. They were Dinka, Masalit, and Fur. They were Berti, Bargo, and Beni Jarrar. But while sharing only the terrible circumstances that had thrust them together, they could all agree on this: were it not for the woman-the American nurse-their life in the camp would have been a living hell.

As it stood, they endured a daily struggle for survival despite the woman’s devotion to them and their unrelenting plight, which was apparent to all. Situated one kilometer east of the paved road from Al-Geneina to Nyala-the capital city of South Darfur-the temporary settlement consisted of nothing more than three hundred hastily constructed shelters. Most were crudely composed of clothes, rugs, and plastic trash bags draped over a rough framework of interwoven branches. A few lucky families-those who had arrived in the early stages of the camp’s development-had access to sturdy canvas tents supplied by USAID, also known as the United States Agency for International Development; UNICEF; or Medicins Sans Frontieres, the Paris-based organization better known as Doctors Without Borders.