IBRAHIM Isa Ibrahim's village is quiet now, a place where women in brightly coloured veils chatter together as they walk past tethered donkeys sheltering from the searing heat of Chad's dry season. But the day the men whom locals call Janjaweed came, the air rang with the sound of gunfire and screaming.
"They killed dozens of people including more than 10 from my family," Ibrahim recalls as he stands at the entrance to the village. "Then they set fire to our homes. They destroyed everything." Those who survived fled across miles of parched scrubland until they came across other displaced Chadians who had set up a makeshift camp.
There they waited and waited until village leaders felt it was safe to return. Now dozens of families have made the journey back to La Butike to rebuild their squat-shaped mud-and-thatch huts.
Among them is Fatima Zacharia and her 10 children. "We heard there was no longer any trouble so we decided to come back," she says. "Up to now there are no problems, and we pray to God that continues."
In some respects, the success of the EU mission to Chad could be measured by the stories of people like Ibrahim and Fatima. The mission, known as EUfor, has a UN mandate to create a safe environment for civilians in Chad's troubled eastern flank.
The hope is that the presence of EUfor will contribute to a greater sense of security which in turn may encourage those driven from their homes to return. Some 400 Irish troops have deployed to the region as part of EUfor. La Butike falls within their area of responsibility. To get there the soldiers of the Defence Forces' 98th Infantry Battalion must negotiate their vehicles along rutted dirt tracks and through desiccated creeks. "We get a good reception when we arrive at the village," says Lieut Kieran Kennedy. "The people here say they would like more visits from us. It's as if they want a permanent presence."
Some humanitarian agencies estimate that about 5,000 displaced families have begun to make their way back to areas deemed relatively safe. But that amounts to a fraction of the number of Chadians uprooted from their homes in recent years.
The displaced are just one symptom of the arc of instability that stretches from Sudan to eastern Chad, with the conflict in neighbouring Darfur only exacerbating Chad's multiple woes.
For people like Ibrahim, the day when they will no longer have to fear the Janjaweed seems far away.