Police stops at an hourly basis has become "business as usual" for our trip. This stop proved to be different.
We were stopped by soldiers with machine guns and rifles. They told us that we had to wait for enough cars, buses and trucks to come so that they could form a convoy.
We spent one hour, drinking beer, eating and looking around in the village. Our trip leader told us not to take photos of any police, military or such vehicles/buildings.
Two armed soldiers were inspecting and counting the souls on the bus. Shortly after leaving the bus, they boarded again, screaming "camera, photo, phone!". They thought we had taken photos of them and they started checking the camera belonging to the suspected. The soldiers checked all (that means, all) pictures, including some high school graduation pictures (he gave a cocky answer when the soldier asked about that picture...). No illegal photos were found and he got the phone back after the soldier had threaten to break the phone.
The 115 km trip lasted for two hours under the protection from armoured combat vehicles and lots of soldiers. We saw one burnt wreck from a bus on the road, some destroyed trucks, a repaired bridge and a military camp.
In the beginning, it felt like an adventure, but I quickly realized that this is for real. There has been attacks on that road before, and people have been killed in those attacks.
For reasons that should be obvious for the reader, I have no photos of the convoy. I'll try to summarize the background of the conflict in a later post.
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