The late morning sun baked the red earth of Beinamar. With his forehead beaded with sweat, Jonas stood at the edge of his field. What he saw took his breath away: millet stalks torn up, a month’s work reduced to rubble. A freshly sown millet field had been ravaged by a herd of cattle that day in the village of Beinamar.
The owner Jonas, a Christian Ngambaï farmer, knelt down, weakened by the sight before him. Then he saw a young man in the distance slowly driving a herd of cattle. It was Hamad, a Fulani herder whom he knew by sight. Jonas jumped to his feet. He roared at Hamad and advanced furiously toward him. Hamad stopped and gaped, his eyes wide open, asking what he had done. “Look what your animals have done to my field. Do you think my field is a playground?”
The tone rose, arguments broke out, and very quickly the tension spread beyond the two individuals and became an open conflict throughout the village. Within hours, the tension spread throughout the village. Members of both communities, Muslims and Christians, got involved, accusations flew, and rumors spread. The indigenous Christian farmers accused the nomadic Muslim herders of land grabbing.
“It’s always the same!” shouted a man from the neighborhood. “They want to take our land by force!”
“And you think we don’t have the right to live here?” replied a young Fulani.
Very quickly, it was no longer Jonas against Hamad. The conflict became a conflict between Christians and Muslims, farmers and herders, and old memories resurfaced. Community leaders intervened, some of them stirring up fears. Certain religious leaders and traditional chiefs were quick to draw conclusions that went further back in time; the civil war of 1979 was dusted off and brandished like a weapon, reopening old wounds that had never healed.
“It’s not just about fields, it’s more than that. It’s an old project, a well-thought-out plan dating back to the FROLINAT era. Have you forgotten 1979? I haven’t forgotten a thing. Even back then, we were told it was just a temporary conflict. And yet, war came,” said a traditional leader.
On the other side, some young herders are organizing, claiming they are victims of stigmatization because of their ethnicity and religion and saying they have the right to live throughout the territory. “We are not terrorists, we are Chadians. We have the right to live here, like everyone else,” insisted a young herder. Another person continued: “The real problem is that there are no longer any transhumance corridors. Our cattle go where they can, and crops are spreading everywhere. Even where the cattle tracks used to be, there are fields now.”
In the shade of a large mango tree, a few elders were talking in low voices. From time to time, they glanced toward the village square, where young people were engaged in increasingly heated exchanges.
“Another story about fields and herds,” murmured an old man.
But this time, the atmosphere was different. It wasn’t just a dispute over a fence or a right of way. Something in the air was heavier, the looks were harder, the words were sharper.
“You see, it’s always them! The Fulani, the Arabs… They come, they settle down, and then they want to take everything,” says an old man. Another replies: “And what are we supposed to be? Intruders? We’ve lived here for generations.”
A few steps away in a mud hut, the village chief was trying to mediate. He had brought together representatives from both sides. “Listen, this isn’t about religion. This isn’t a war of God, it’s a misunderstanding, a land dispute. Let’s try to talk it out,” he said.
But tempers were already running high. Tension rose and the meeting ended abruptly. The next day, the sub-prefect arrived with his guards. Calm was restored, but peace? No. Everyone remained on guard. Because here, the conflict between herders and farmers hangs like a sword over their heads, ready to fall at the slightest wrong word.
In village discussions and in the big cities one narrative prevails: herders, whether Fulani or Arab, are necessarily Muslim. Farmers, Sara, are necessarily Christian. And the people believing in these stereotypes think they understand everything, but what they are looking at is a broken mirror. In northern Chad, there are Muslim farmers. In some southern regions, herders are Christian. And yet, the same story repeats itself. But the real problem is not religion. Other factors come into play. In rural Chad, land disputes are like embers smoldering beneath the ashes. As long as the wind is calm, they lie dormant, but all it takes is an incident, a rumor, an accusation, and everything goes up in flames. And too often, religion is thrown into the fire like gasoline.
But deep down it’s not beliefs that divide us. It’s the stereotypes we attach to them. It’s the silence, the misunderstandings, the lack of clear rules. And every time we look at others solely through the lens of their ethnicity or faith, we widen the divide a little more.
A few hundred kilometers away, amid the hustle and bustle of the Diguel Zafaye cattle market in N’Djamena, the contrast was striking. Here, under corrugated iron sheds, farmers and herders were talking, laughing, and haggling.
Over a cup of hot tea, a focus group organized by the Youth Platform for Living Together, an organization working for peaceful coexistence and social cohesion, was in full swing. The organization regularly organizes discussions with herders and farmers about conflicts. Sitting in a circle, young traders, herders from Salamat, farmers from Mayo-Kebbi and other provinces gather in the market for a single purpose: to sell their products.
At the livestock market, herders and farmers from all over the country discuss, trade, and sometimes negotiate small agreements on livestock transport or fodder prices. And on that day, a truth emerged. As if by magic, the protagonists of Beinamar, Jonas and Hamad, met each other again on this bi-weekly market, at the heart of the focus group.
The conflict between herders and farmers takes a different turn when the ‘Youth Platform for Living Together’ decided to intervene. By organizing a community discussion group, the organization brought together the protagonists, Jonas and Hamad, as well as elders, women, and young people. Everyone spoke about their losses, fears, rumors, and perceived injustices. Their eyes met, each with a hint of guilt. They decided to break the silence and bear witness to the conflict that had divided them in Beinamar.
“That day I saw my field ransacked. I saw weeks of work go up in smoke and I exploded. I saw Hamad with his oxen and immediately thought he had done it on purpose. Anger blinded me. Today, I understand that it’s more complicated than that. Hamad isn’t the problem, it’s that we’re not told where the herds should pass and everyone does what they can,” Jonas lamented.
When it was his turn to speak, Hamad, like Jonas, realized that since the disputes in the village, stereotypes had been a factor in the incessant arguments. Recognizing that he did not want to cause any harm, he threw himself into the game initiated by the association, which was to free oneself by telling one’s story.
“I grew up among these fields, I even know Jonas’ parents. I’m not trying to cause any harm but my cattle need water and grass, and we don’t have any more corridors to let them through. When I saw the damage, I was afraid, afraid that I would be accused, that I would be attacked, so I ran away and that made the situation worse.”
It is clear from Mahamat’s face that he, who came from Salamat but clearly does not live in the situation described by the protagonists in southern Chad, understood the situation. “The problem is not religious, it’s the soil, the lack of water, the absence of transhumance corridors,” he summarized. Mahamat explained that in his region, there are frequent confrontations between Muslim farmers and herders, without any mention of interreligious conflict.
An elderly woman sitting nearby, feeling guilty and singled out, intervened, said that it is stereotypes that divide the two communities in the countryside, not the devastation of fields by herds. “When I was young, families of herders and farmers helped each other. The women gave milk, and we gave them millet. Today, we are afraid of each other, even though we live on the same land. Rumors are more destructive than cattle,” she said.
“This must stop. If we continue to believe that every conflict is a religious war, we will end up provoking one ourselves. The land belongs to everyone, but without rules, it’s the law of the strongest. What we need are clear agreements and respect,” concluded Mahamat Tahir, secretary general of the Youth Platform for Living Together.
A participant from Mongo also testified that “over there, we are all Muslims. Yet every year, there are tensions between the fields and the herds. The real problem is that we no longer know who has rights to which land.”
Conflicts between farmers and herders in Chad are not new, but they are intensifying. The population is growing, drought is shortening the growing seasons and forcing herders to move south earlier. The transhumance corridors, once respected, are now overrun with crops. In the absence of a functional land registry or reliable mediation, misunderstandings are escalating.
“What we are seeing today is the failure of a natural resource management system,” said a community mediator from Mandoul. “As long as the state does not put in place clear mechanisms for dialogue and land sharing, tensions will continue,” he insisted during the focus group.
Religion then becomes a catalyst, a shortcut to interpretation. It gives emotional meaning to the conflict but distracts from its real causes. Many community leaders are now realizing this.
Little by little, stereotypes are falling away. Jonas discovers that Hamad was born in the neighboring village and attended the same school as his cousins. Hamad learns that Jonas, despite his apparent anger, lost a brother in a previous conflict and wants to prevent history from repeating itself. Dialogue becomes possible, not because differences disappear, but because they are acknowledged without being demonized.
Jonas and Hamad did not become friends overnight, but they chose not to be enemies. With the help of mediators, they identified concrete solutions such as introducing these exchange frameworks in the village and bringing the two communities together to discuss the conflicts. They understood that it was by listening to each other that they would be able to overcome their differences and make peace.
In the warm late afternoon breeze, at the market in Diguel, an agreement was born. Not a peace treaty, but a promise of vigilance and dialogue. A seed was planted between two men who, just a few days earlier, had almost come to blows.
This story, although local, carries a national lesson. The conflict between herders and farmers is neither inevitable nor a religious war. It is a conflict over territory, resources, and recognition. And like any conflict, it can be transformed, if people listen, understand, and above all, look beyond appearances.
Caption foto’s: Gathering of the micro-project “All together for peace at the Diguel Zafaye livestock market” by the association.
Photographer: Gerard
