[In the Field] Mia Farrow: Goz Beida, Eastern Chad

© UNICEF/Pirozzi In these conditions, children are also at risk for several diseases that are entirely preventable with low-cost interventions like the UNICEF-supplied oral polio vaccine that we gave this baby today.

We are now in Goz Beida, eastern Chad, near the Darfur border. Over the last four years since the violence began in Darfur 235,000 people have fled their burning villages seeking safety here. They were welcomed by their Chadian neighbors and for a time they were safe. But Darfur's Janjaweed are here. Now Chadian villages are burning. Countless innocent Chadians have been murdered and mutilated. 115,000 are homeless, struggling to survive in make shift sites and camps. Courageous aid workers in difficult and dangerous conditions are doing their utmost to sustain this traumatized and fragile population, not only the Darfurians but now the Chadians. Over the last two days we met with many displaced families and refugees. The need for food and water was desperate, but their first request was for protection. It is past time for international peacekeeping force to come to eastern Chad.