Steven Lawrence had been taken from an Oxfam camp. The camps were often raided—they were dumping grounds for scop, the primary source of food for millions of Saharans. The black market for single-cell protein was the major economy of the region—the "government" of Mauritania, for instance, was little more than a scop cartel. Foreign handouts, a few potash mines, and an army—that was Mauritania.