New York, Aug 17 2011 12:10PM
When Istvan Papp awoke on the morning of 7 October last year, he had no way of knowing that he would spend most of the next three months waking up under the open sky, surrounded by camels and chained to a tree near Sudan's border with Chad.
On that Thursday, the UN civilian peacekeeper had gone about his work with the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) – where he oversaw its programme for the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants – and returned in the evening to the house he shared with four colleagues in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in Sudan.
As he had on previous nights over the past year and a half, Mr. Papp was about to head to the house's roof-top from where he would call his family in Hungary, when everything changed.
"I was in the corridor, just in front of my room when I saw someone standing in the hall with a machine gun and shouting at us, having all of us go into one room and they tied us up there," Mr. Papp said.
An unknown number of armed men had broken in to the residence.
The 55-year-old was no stranger to the dangers of serving in remote locations. Throughout his 31 years of service with the Hungarian armed forces, as well as after his retirement in 2005, he served in various peacekeeping operations – both UN and non-UN – in Iraq, Iran, the Sinai peninsula, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Nepal, and also spent several years as a desk officer with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at UN Headquarters in New York.
<div id="EmbedPhotoLeft"><"http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/large/2011/August/papp-03.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Along with peacekeeping colleagues, Istvan Papp takes part in a child soldier release exercise in the village of Kafod, North Darfur (2010)." rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/2011/August/papp-03.jpg"><p class="phtocaption2">Along with peacekeeping colleagues, Istvan Papp takes part in a child soldier release exercise in the village of Kafod, North Darfur (2010).</p>
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To some degree, his training had prepared him for what was happening. But, looking back on his ordeal some months after it ended, Mr. Papp was keen to stress that despite the training, nothing quite prepares one in such circumstances.
"It's like a fairy tale, it cannot be. It's like a joke: 'What's going on?!' You don't believe it's happening to you. You don't really realize what's up," he said.
The butt of a machine gun being slammed into his kidneys helped him realize just how serious his situation was that windy Thursday night.
Along with a Serbian housemate, he was taken at gunpoint to a UN vehicle parked outside the house. With one of their abductors at the wheel and others in passenger seats, they drove off. Taking advantage of a momentary distraction, Mr. Papp's housemate managed to escape from the unlocked vehicle. It was a different story for Mr. Papp, bound in the back of the 4WD.
"In one way, I was happy that he left because at least he could raise the alarm. He could do something that could also help me," Mr. Papp said. "But I was tied up, I was thrown in the back of the vehicle. I had no chance…"
Of the other house-mates, two were taken in another vehicle but, being accompanied by fewer abductors, they managed to escape. The fifth house-mate had escaped detection during the break-in.
The UN vehicle carrying Mr. Papp was abandoned in El Fasher. He was transferred to another two vehicles – with the last transfer site near the UNAMID compound – before finally speeding off into the night, towards the border with Chad, around 400 kilometres from El Fasher.
It was on that long drive, as the shock of what had happened wore off, that the gravity of Mr. Papp's current circumstances sank in.
<div id="EmbedPhotoRight"><"http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/large/2011/August/papp-06.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Istvan Papp outside of an UNAMID armoured personnel carrier during a stop on the way to the village of Tura, 40 kilometres outside of El Fasher, North Darfur (2010)." rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/2011/August/papp-06.jpg"><p class="phtocaption2">Istvan Papp outside of an UNAMID armoured personnel carrier during a stop on the way to the village of Tura, 40 kilometres outside of El Fasher, North Darfur (2010).</p>
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"You don't really think, in the first hours, about what is happening. You just obey and you do what you are told. I had read the UN brochure on how to behave during abductions and all that… you recall slowly that you better wait – they haven't killed you and that's a good sign," Mr. Papp said.
This was further confirmed when, a day or two after his abduction, his kidnappers organized a satellite telephone call to Radio Dabanga – an independent, Netherlands-based radio outlet covering events in Darfur – which was Mr. Papp's first opportunity to give proof of life, the term used to indicate that a kidnap victim is still alive.
"That's when you also hear, for the first time, that they want a ransom. So it means they will feed you, they will provide you with security and all that," he said. "They told me that my job was to stay healthy, they will provide security, they will feed me, provide me water and everything, plus they will do the negotiations, because that's their business."
The kidnappers were demanding a ransom of $1 million – however, the UN policy is to not pay ransoms and the responsibility for UN staff security in a peacekeeping area of operations lies primarily in the hands of the local authorities.
Initially, Mr. Papp had some degree of personal freedom – but that was not to last.
"For the first 10 days, I was considered to be an old man, and they appreciated that, so I was not chained. I was guarded, but I had a kind of freedom of movement, I could go to the toilet…," Mr. Papp said. "But after 10 days, when they learned from me that I was former military – I mean, you have to tell them these things, they would get to know of it, so it is better if I tell them – they decided to chain me during the night and after two or three days they decided throughout the day also, so 24 hours a day."
<div id="EmbedPhotoLeft"><"http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/large/2011/August/16-darfur-map.jpg" class="lightbox" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/2011/August/16-darfur-map.jpg" style="height: 180px">
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The chain became a regular and central part of the peacekeeper's daily existence, along with a herd of camels and various trees.
"We moved from one place to the other every two or three days. Whenever we moved, first they went to look for a tree for me," Mr. Papp said. "When they found an appropriate tree, providing shade for the day, they put one end of the chain to the tree, the other end to either my left or right leg."
Despite the conditions he now found himself in, there was some thoughtfulness which Mr. Papp could appreciate.
"I always had the choice of which leg I would like to be chained," he said. "During the day, as the sun was going around, I had to change my place. The chain was about three-metres long, with 96 links it. It gave me freedom of movement, just enough to move as the shade moved."
Given the sudden narrowness of his future prospects, such considerations took on even more weight for Mr. Papp given the unlikelihood of a speedy end to his abduction.
"Knowing the area that I was held in and knowing the people, their number and also the kind of weapons the
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