Many of the villagers are crying as they file slowly onto the large, single-decker bus, hired by concerned people in Suva, to take 72 villagers to a safe sanctuary in Lautoka on the western side of Viti Levu. This will be Fiji's first refugee camp and is set up in the grounds of the Lautoka Sanatan Primary School. The men, women and children are dressed in donated clothing and look as if they're going on a Sunday outing. But the packed bus is silent. Children aren't laughing.
Women quietly weep and men stare blankly.
Bulging suitcases and string-tied cardboard boxes jam the aisle. The villagers explain that armed masked men still wander around the village at night making noises. The bus kicks up clouds of dust as it bounces down the hills and slowly edges its way up them as it makes its way over 20-kilometres of unsealed road to the main road. The bus has to cover a slow 260 kilometres before it reaches Lautoka. Every military roadblock the bus passes increases the tension for the villagers.