The word came in over a crackling satellite phone. A British NGO worker, embedded in a lakeside city that no longer appears on tourist maps, whispered it. ‘They shot my neighbour.’
This is the reality now. A city once known for its waters is known for its body count. The war has a local flavour here. It is not distant artillery. It is the man next door, turned informant, turned executioner. The British NGO, a small outfit with a big name in Whitehall, is on the ground. They are not there to stop the shooting. They are there to pick up the pieces.
The political game in Westminster is far away. But the ripples are felt here. The Foreign Office has been quiet. Too quiet. Sources tell me there is a split. The humanitarian desk wants to send more. The security desk worries about the optics. ‘We cannot be seen to pick sides,’ a mid-level official told me, off the record. ‘But picking sides is what we do every time we send a vaccine to one camp and not the other.’
The NGO’s convoy was hit last week. A lucky shot, they said. But there are no lucky shots in a war zone. The driver was a local. He knew the roads. He knew the checkpoints. He did not know the sniper. He is dead now. His neighbour is the one who spoke the words.
The trauma is not just in the city. It is in the corridors of the FCDO. The polling tells a story. The British public is weary. They remember Iraq and Afghanistan. They do not want another forever war. But they also do not want to see children starve on the evening news. The Prime Minister’s approval rating on foreign policy is soft. Like wet sand. A single misstep and it collapses.
Inside the Cabinet, there is a faction pushing for a full withdrawal of aid workers. ‘Too risky,’ they say. Another faction, led by the International Development Secretary, argues that withdrawal is a betrayal. The NGO workers on the ground agree with the latter. They cannot abandon the people they have come to help. But they are scared. I have seen the WhatsApp messages. They are full of black humour and farewells.
The backbenchers are restless. A group of MPs from both sides of the aisle has tabled a motion calling for a parliamentary debate. They want answers. They will not get them. The government is paralysed. The usual leaks are coming from the usual places. A special adviser told me, ‘We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. But the rock is a humanitarian crisis and the hard place is a public that has stopped caring.’
The city is Lake something. I cannot name it for security reasons. The people there have names. They have neighbours. They have lives that were normal until they were not. The British NGO is a lifeline. But lifelines can be cut. The question in Whitehall is: who cuts it and when?
For now, the aid keeps coming. The workers keep working. The neighbours keep shooting. And I keep writing. Because it is the only thing I can do.
