" "I must leave to save my life," said Amari Dogble's husband, as he left her on what she remembers as "the black day," March 25, 1993. A government militia was executing leaders of Togo's pro-democracy movement.

"Where are you going," she asked.

"God willing," were the last words she heard.

"I didn't hear the rest," she says, "because he was running."

Today, Amari and her husband, Victor, live in an apartment on Michie Street. Behind her are the Ghana refugee camp, the sadness, the long days and nights of exile. She says, "I thank you Lord, you delivered us." Like hundreds of other refugees in Charlottesville, Amari has had a new beginning.

"Who are we going to rescue," asks Charlottesville's International Rescue Committee director, Susan Donovan. The task is daunting. Today, worldwide, 14.9 million people are forced to live outside their homelands, while 22 million people are internally displaced within their own countries. This year, potentially 70,000 will come to the United States. One hundred and fifty will end up in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

"I've worked for IRC in L.A., Seattle and Thailand. ...Charlottesville is Nirvana compared to those places," says Donovan. "Here, you can put a refugee to work and enroll their kid in school, and that night at the grocery they could run into their employer and their child's teacher. It makes for an entirely different integration process."

In Charlottesville, the IRC has settled more than 400 refugees from Afghanistan, Burma, Bosnia, Congo, Croatia, Kosovo, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Togo. "That's really a small number," says Donovan. Harrisonburg, a prime destination because of its poultry plants, hosts nearly 6,000 refugees.

Here, refugees find work at businesses like LA Lacy, a local plumbing contractor, the Omni Hotel, Farmington Country Club and the UVA hospital. "Once employers and landlords take a chance [on a refugee], they call us again," says Donovan. "Their work ethic is great."

Donovan says the refugees who settle here make the most of what they're given. "They value freedom and opportunity and the ability to live in peace in a way that we cannot even begin to understand or appreciate," she says. "When September 11 happened, it was so traumatizing for all of those folks. They've all been there, up close and personal."

One day, Donovan hopes Charlottesville will become the premier resettlement site for refugees in the United States. The exchange, she says, is reciprocal. "Charlottesville has everything to offer refugees, and refugees have everything to offer this community."

"The soccer team at Charlottesville High School has been revolutionized by our clients," she says with a laugh.

On a more serious note, Donovan points out that refugees are not victims, but survivors. "The people who are bagging your groceries might have been in a concentration camp," she says.

Here are some of their stories.

Afghanistan

"The way people are living here, they are sleeping, dreaming," says Afghani refugee Huma Tasleem. "It's not real life."

The first 20 years of this UVA employee's life had been marked by repression and war. First, it was the Russians, then Afghani warlords and, finally, the Taliban. "The Taliban was the worst," she says. A lifetime is too long to wait for peace. "Before September 11, most people did not think of Afghanistan," she says. "After that, everyone was interested."

Tasleem, her mother and three sisters were among the first Afghan refugees to come to Charlottesville, in 1999. At that time, the United States admitted only 364 refugees, although drought and war had driven 3 million of them to Pakistan. Now in the spotlight, Afghanistan's 4 million refugees are the world's largest displaced population. With the Palestinians, they make up more than half of the world's refugees.

"I felt miserable, going away from my country," Tasleem says. "On the other hand, I was happy because I was going to get a life."

The road here was hard. She fled Kabul first to Northern Afghanistan, then to Pakistan. "We were in basements for weeks and weeks, days and nights," she says. Abuse and extortion was rampant. She tells how Pakistani police would detain Afghani men and beat them into false confessions of theft or drug smuggling.

"There were times we were crying and saying that it was better to be Afghanistan under the rockets and bombs than being in Pakistan in this situation," Tasleem says.

But Afghanis share in the blame for their plight, too, she says. "War and the Taliban came to Afghanistan because ethnic groups were fighting. ...I hope all those Afghan people who have guns in their hands settle down and think about their country, their people," she says.

"Why we're here is because stupid people thought, 'You should get this and I should get this.'"

Croatia

"When we got here, we said we're not going to be spoiled," says Sinisa Vasquez.

Sinisa and his wife, Draga, are Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia. Krajina was a UN-protected zone that was overrun by Croatian forces in 1995 during the ethnic-cleansing episode known as "Operation Storm." Nearly 200,000 Serbs were excised from the country and, according to European Union monitors, those who were unable to make the 250-mile journey to safety, were executed, their homes looted and burned. Fleeing refugees were shelled, stoned, spit upon and beaten.

Many, like the Vasquezes, ended up in Novi Sad in Voyvodina, north of Belgrade, only to be bombed for 50 days in 1999 by American planes during the Kosovo war. "Deja vu was starting again," says Sinisa. A TV station was destroyed less than two miles from his apartment.

With seven bags, $700 and two kids, they escaped and came to Charlottesville. "Back in Yugoslavia when you say 'America,' you think Hollywood, dreamland, dollars on trees," says Sinisa. "That's way away from the truth. If you don't expect much and if you're ready to start from scratch, if you can say 'I have to work hard, I'm not going to be spoiled, I'm going to take whatever is necessary,' then you can succeed. "

Sinisa got a job working the morning shift as a cameraman for Channel 29. Nights he delivered pizzas. Now he's employed as an apprentice optician at LensCrafters, where he plans to be a fully licensed optician by 2004.

Draga, who could not speak English or drive a car, started cleaning houses. After certification, she now styles hair at Bristles.

They were able to sponsor the resettlement of Draga's mother and father and her brother's family. At present, Draga and Sinisa have a house under contract on Lake Monticello.

"Over there, one day you are, one day you aren't," says Sinisa. "Over here, you can plan for your future."

Sudan

"I haven't seen my mother for 18 years," says Mohamed Adam Yahya, looking very alone in his IRC apartment on Angus Road. He has been in Charlottesville just three weeks. "My parents there are suffering so much," he says. "Very sad. Sad times."

Yahya is Massaleit, a black Darfur Muslim of Western Sudan. He is one of 350,000 Massaleit who have fled the militias of Sudan's ruling National Islamic Front. "It is a war against our people," he says. The NIF, which came to power in a 1989 military coup, has increasingly used Arab militias to raze oil-rich areas inhabited by non-Arab groups.

When Yahya wrote to international organizations about their situation, he says his name was added to a blacklist. He is pursued, he says, by spies. His sister was raped, he claims, as punishment for his activism.

But that hasn't silenced him. In Cairo, where he studied Islamic philosophy and earned money to support his family, Mohamed and other Sudanese intellectuals dubbed themselves Spokesmen of the Representatives of the Massaleit Community in Exile. They sent open letters to whomever would listen, documenting "The Hidden Slaughter and Ethnic Cleansing in Western Sudan." Fourteen killed in one attack on a weekly market, here; 150 huts set ablaze, there. In the village of Kasia, he says, "They caught a woman who had given birth to twins. The two babies were removed from their mother...and lowered into boiling water with their heads down. These are the facts."

Yahya likes Charlottesville, but his heart remains in Sudan. "Maybe I could find friends here," he says. "But it is difficult to replace my family. I get feeling very sad when I think about my parents. It's been a very long time."

Bosnia

On the curb beside the Second Street dumpling shop that bears his name, little Marco says, "We are from far, far, far, far away." His mother is Dragana Katalina-Sun, a refugee from Bosnia Herzegovina and co-owner of Marco and Luca, a storefront restaurant on the Downtown Mall.

She was in Sarajevo in 1993, and left when the war started. "One of us had to support my mom and dad," she says. "So I just went. My brother stayed with them." She looks away. "I always think I shouldn't have left them. Why did I have to escape and they have to see all those bad things?"

She traveled to Germany, where she met and fell in love with Sun Da, a Chinese chef. Eventually she found a job, but living wasn't easy. Neither could get a permanent visa. "They made sure that you don't feel at home," she says, not wanting to be too critical. "We have some wonderful German friends, but, in general, you're not welcome."

Things changed, though, when she, with 30,000 other Bosnians, was approved to come to America. "It's a different spirit here," Katalina-Sun says. "It makes you feel, 'OK what can we do next?'" For her, like many local refugees, it meant getting a job at the Omni.

Sun hurt his back and had to quit his construction job, but disappointment blossomed to opportunity. To fulfill a lifelong dream, Sun wanted to open a little shop. With help from Virginia National Bank, Marco and Luca opened on December 31.

"I feel like a human being here," Katalina-Sun says. "I feel like it's home." Unlike some refugees, she's found where she belongs. "I'm really glad to be in Charlottesville. We're never going to move anywhere else."

Togo

In 1993, 200,000 Togolese fled the country to escape the government's violent crackdown against a pro-democracy movement. Victor Dogble and his wife, Amari, are among the several dozen who settled in Charlottesville.

"It's frustrating to be here, " Victor says. "But if you stay there, your life is in danger." According to Amnesty International reports, hundreds of Togolese were extrajudicially executed by security forces during Togo's 1998 presidential elections. Bodies were found on beaches in Togo and Benin, reportedly after being dropped from helicopters. Political dissidents in Togo are allegedly often detained and beaten. One prisoner said that he was forced to eat sand.

"I like the way we are free here. Free, free, free, free, free. Born free. Live free. Die free," he says. "That is American democracy. In my country, it is not a democracy at all."

Victor lays the blame on France, which he says has supported Togo's longstanding president Gnassingbe Eyadema. He says America won't intervene because Togo has nothing of value. "America is a freedom country," he says. "If there is something there, America wants freedom for them. But not Togo."

Formerly a mechanical engineer in aviation, Victor now works as a housekeeper and studies at Piedmont Virginia Community College. The money he earns, he sends back to his friends in the Ghana refugee camp where he lived for eight years. "They are suffering," he says.

"I'll come back one day, God bless," he says solemnly. "I have hope." And though he can't find the exact words to express his feelings, his parting words are lucid: "Struggle my brother. Hang on and one day you will overcome like I did. May God help America to continue assisting the poor." " (Brian Wimer, C-Ville Weekly, July 9-15, 2002 )