SUDAN: When government troops and the Arab militias known as the Janjaweed arrived at Abu Gerein aid camp, in west Darfur, they didn't just shoot indiscriminately - they targeted children too.
Kadija Abakr Abdelrahman ran from the shooting. She ducked into her simple thatched home in search of safety. She came face to face with a Janjaweed fighter, she said yesterday sitting in the gloom of El Geneina hospital.
Kadija cradled her three-year-old daughter in her arms as she recounted her story.
The Arab militiaman demanded money, levelling his AK-47 at the toddler. "I told him there was nothing but he insisted, 'I will shoot, I will shoot, I will shoot'," she said wiping a tear from her cheek. He shot Aasha twice in the neck. By the end of the day 13 people had been killed in three waves of attacks on the camps around the town of Sirba, in west Darfur, six days ago. Another 18 lay injured and more than 200 homes had been burned to the ground.
It is three-and-a-half years since Darfur's farming tribes took up arms against an Arab-dominated regime. But the killing continues.
And where the camps of west Darfur once offered a haven from the government troops and their Janjaweed allies, they now offer only anarchy and fear.
A meagre force of 7,000 African Union troops has been unable to keep the peace or even secure the camps. Residents say the camps around El Geneina - about 32 kilometres from the border with Chad - are riddled with armed militias and bandits.
The feared Arab Janjaweed and their allies among the Chadian rebels roam the dusty paths between huts. Where once women were raped if they left in search of water or firewood, they are now a target inside the supposed safety of the camps.
Jan Egeland, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, arrived in El Geneina, the capital of west Darfur, yesterday to see for himself how conditions had changed.
He spent the day meeting tribal leaders and representatives of the people herded into camps.
Meanwhile, Kofi Annan, secretary general of the UN, met African Union officials in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to discuss Darfur. The meeting also includes senior officials from the Arab League, the European Union, Sudan, the United States, China, Russia, Egypt, France and a half-dozen African countries.
Sudan has so far rejected the prospect of UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
Instead officials are considering a hybrid force of African and UN troops, or bolstering the AU force with logistical support, equipment and personnel.
But there is only one solution for the tens of thousands of people crammed into the miserable camps around El Geneina.
"Every time we meet with the UN officials we ask them to bring peacekeeping forces to the camps. But up to now they are not doing this," said Sheikh Abdullah Adam Abdullah, one of the local leaders.
"People are giving this responsibility to the African Union but they cannot protect themselves, so how can they protect others."
He painted a miserable picture of life inside Ardamata, one of the camps dotted with mango and neem trees amid the rubbish dumps outside town.
Shootings and rapes have become more common as the number of gunmen roaming his camp had increased, he said. "We expect at any moment that there's going to be an attack at the camp because it's clear that there are more personnel that have been armed," he said. More than 200,000 people have died during the conflict.
A further two million have been driven into camps as a result of the government's scorched earth policy, using Janjaweed militias to kill, loot and burn their way across Darfur.
Insecurity has increased further since May, when a peace agreement was signed between the government and one rebel faction. The remaining rebel groups have fragmented leaving individual commanders in control of a patchwork of territory.
Khartoum stepped up attacks during August and September deploying Antonov bombers against rebel and civilian targets.
Yesterday, Janjaweed fighters were reported to have launched fresh assaults against rebel strongholds in north Darfur.
The insecurity also had an impact on Mr Egelan's trip. The camps were ruled too volatile to visit and his planned three-day visit was cut to two because of government restrictions on his itinerary.
"This is my fourth visit here and I have not seen such a bad security situation," he said later.
"There are too many armed militias outside the camps and inside the camps. Aid workers in west Darfur cannot move on the roads because their vehicles are being stolen and civilians are caught in the crossfire between the armed groups."