SUDAN: Fear is spreading as attacks escalate, reports Rob Crilly from Zam Zam camp in North Darfur
The men had gathered in the village square to listen to a visiting cleric from Chad when the Janjaweed attacked. Some of the nomadic militiamen rode horses, others drove into Sandingo in Sudan's western region of Darfur aboard four-wheel drive Toyota landcruisers.
The men ran for their lives, gathering women and children from the mud-brick homes of the village as the Janjaweed fired AK-47s indiscriminately.
"They killed 12 men and injured seven more," says Mohamed Ibrahim Adam (37). "We had to run into the hills and then come here."
He arrived a week ago in Zam Zam camp, a refuge for what aid workers call internally displaced people. Some 5,000 people have trekked to this dusty settlement on the outskirts of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in the past six weeks A further 1,900 have arrived at Abu Shouk, its neighbour, as Darfur's desert war erupts once again.
Jan Pronk, the United Nations special representative to Sudan, is describing the situation as anarchy. Charities and UN agencies warn that escalating banditry and attacks by rebels and Janjaweed - as well as unrest in the camps themselves - are threatening their work.
The spectre of hunger once again haunts a land where farmers are being driven from their fields.
The latest attacks brought an end to a period of relative calm and have sent thousands of families on the move. Zam Zam is full.
New arrivals must content themselves with marking out a small patch of ground with stones while they wait for help building a shelter.
Mohamed Nasir Abdullah is one of those who spend their days sitting within a pebble ring beneath an acacia tree to keep off the burning African sun. "I am new, so I don't have any shelter. This is my house," he says, motioning to the dusty soil around him.
It is 2½ years since the farming tribes in the western region of Darfur took up arms against the Arab government in Khartoum, which they accused of ignoring their needs.
The Sudanese government responded by unleashing nomadic Arab militias - the dreaded Janjaweed - on the rebels. The militias, often supported by government Antonov bombers, razed villages they suspected of harbouring rebels.
Conservative estimates suggest that some two million people have been forced to flee their homes for camps where international charities and the UN offer a measure of security. A further 180,000 people have been killed in the violence.
The brutal war prompted Colin Powell, when he was US secretary of state, to label the killings "genocide". An investigation by the UN published earlier this year stopped short of drawing the same conclusion, but instead accused both sides of war crimes.
That followed one of the troughs of a war which lurches from highs to lows. For a while this year things seemed to be improving. The population of Zam Zam actually decreased in spring as villagers headed home to plant their fields.
Now observers agree that the region has slid back into chaos.
Mr Pronk told The Irish Times: "We have had a relative calm in Darfur since April, but in the past six weeks things have deteriorated." He explained that rebel commanders and their Janjaweed counterparts had lost control of their troops.
At the same time, a split within the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), the main rebel movement, had seen rival commanders step up military action in order to win influence."It is a sort of anarchy," said Mr Pronk.
The trouble coincided with the latest round of stalled peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, last month. All sides - from rebel commanders keen to win a voice at the talks to the Janjaweed who are not represented - have stepped up their campaign of violence.
In North Darfur, an SLA attack on the nomad village of Almallan is blamed as the trigger. The rebels escaped with dozens of cattle and camels.
The Janjaweed responded by attacking as many as 50 villages.
Elsewhere, the United Nations has ruled most of West Darfur off limits after a wave of banditry closed many of its roads.
Aid agencies are confined to the capital, Geneina, and the UN has pulled out all but essential staff.
African Union troops sent in to observe a much-ignored ceasefire are finding themselves increasingly a target. Five Nigerian soldiers and two civilian contractors were killed last month in an ambush.
Last week tensions in Darfur's largest camp, Kalma, boiled over into violence. Residents frustrated by a government blockade of the sprawling site took 35 Sudanese contractors and a handful of aid workers hostage, before releasing them unharmed.
One charity worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up feelings among the aid community.
"We are getting it from all sides," he said. "The government has always been hampering us through their bureaucracy but at first the rebels were co-operative. Now that has all changed and they are just likely to be a problem.
"In short," the charity worker added, "there has been a total breakdown of law and order and people are taking advantage. Even the internally displaced persons have had a go, taking hostages at Kalma camp last week."
Things could still get worse in the weeks ahead, according to Gemmo Lodasani, UN deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for North Sudan.
Later this month rebel leaders and government officials will reconvene in Abuja for the final round of talks before they are due to sign a framework document mapping out the process for a comprehensive settlement next year.
"We know that the same thing will happen on November 21st," he said. "Being the final call, we can expect that on the ground it is going to be at least as bad as we have seen if not worse."
The escalation could not have come at a worse time. November is harvest month. With farmers trapped in camps away from their land, much of this year's crop will go to waste.
Carlos Veloso, Darfur emergency co-ordinator for the UN's World Food Programme, said he was gearing up for greater food shortages next year.
"We are very concerned about the level of attacks and if this is not contained we expect it to affect the harvest," he said. "This is a major concern."
Zam Zam is full of farmers who have left their fields of tomatoes, watermelons and the main staple sorghum behind.
"I need to get back but there's no security," says Abaka Hassan Abdullah (27), squatting inside his compound fenced with grass bundles. "The harvest is coming and we are all worried that it will be taken by the Janjaweed."
His uncle and grandfather were killed when the Janjaweed swept through Sandigo. They seized his small herd of sheep and goats.
"I will go back as soon as I can but that will only be when the war is over. When will that be? I don't know."