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aid workers in danger basement without any human


contact. “I could only take four small steps away from the bed,” he says. “I can’t tell you how much I dreamed of the fifth one.”


“THERE ARE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE DEPTHS OF LONELINESS I REACHED ON THAT VERY THIN BORDER BETWEEN SANITY AND MADNESS.”


Every day a masked guard would bring him a piece of bread, a bowl of soup and a candle, which would be lit for 15 precious minutes. He had one bucket for drinking and washing water and another for a toilet.


Trying to keep his sanity became his focus. He played endless imaginary games of checkers, and devised elaborate


memory games. He


exercised as much as was possible given the constraints of the chains. And he spent many dark moments thinking about the fate of his bodyguard and what his family was going through. “There are no words to describe the depths of loneliness I reached on that very thin border between sanity and madness,” he says.


On one of the several transfers instituted by his kidnappers, a new guard approached Mr. Cochetel. “I’d like to thank you for the assistance your organization (UNHCR) gave to my family when we were displaced in nearby Dagestan,” the guard said


to Mr. Cochetel. Stunned by the irony of his current situation, Mr. Cochetel was


despondent. “What could I


possibly reply? It was like a blade in the belly. It took me weeks of internal thinking to try and reconcile the good reasons why we had to assist that family and the soldier of fortune that this guard had become. In those 15 seconds he made me question everything we did. . .”


Part of that question was examining how his abductors perceived humanitarian


workers and


the


agencies they worked for. He says, “Until then I had thought, ‘They know why we’re there and what we are doing.’ But one cannot assume this. Explaining why we do this is not easy, even to our closest relatives. We are not perfect. We are not superheroes. We are not the world’s fire brigade. We know that humanitarian response is


not a substitute for political


solutions, yet we do this because one life matters. Sometimes that’s the only difference you make. One individual. One family. One small group of individuals.”


After Russian commandos freed him in December of 1998, Mr. Cochetel, who is French, met with the prime minister of France, who told him that his presence in Vladikavkaz at that


Cochetel “I is


time was “irresponsible.” Mr. vehemently


disagrees:


think helping people in danger responsible.


In that war which


nobody wanted to stop—and we have many of those today—it was not just an act of humanity to help people there, it was making a real difference for people.


For Mr. Cochetel, the bottom line is that every life counts, regardless of


circumstances: 26 / UNHCR © UNHCR/ Diego Ibarra Sánchez “When you have


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