Twenty years ago, the founders of the Band Aid charity group lined up with the hottest names in the music business to record the hit single Do They Know It's Christmas? The song not only raised $10 million for famine relief in Africa, but raised awareness of a crippled humanity. It was quickly followed in the United States with We are the World, and Canada's Tears are not Enough. Then came Live Aid, a one-day concert on two continents that brought in over $50 million.

This year, the founders and song writers, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, have released an update of Do They Know It's Christmas? (calling it "Band Aid 20" to mark the 20th anniversary) to kick-start that awareness all over again and to raise money for food aid in Darfur, Sudan.

Twenty fleeting years and the world is just as hungry and much more dangerous. The Middle East is a powder keg, Iraq is a calamitous mess, thousands in Africa continue to die daily from war, tribal conflict, AIDS, or hunger, and terrorists crawl in the shadows across continents and cultures leaving fear and darkness in their wake. And sharing the trail of human conflict and crisis in all its twists and turns are horses and their equine counterparts.

It's no accident that, wherever people struggle, there is a horse or donkey by their side. Equines, simply put, are survival gear. From Afghanistan to Sudan to Central America, in poor villages, refugee camps, and peasant farms, horses, mules, and donkeys carry everything from wood to weapons. And like the desperate people who use them, they are just as much at risk from gunfire, exhaustion, or starvation.

The crisis in Darfur, Sudan, is a lethal collision of political conflict, ethnic cultures, and climate. Since it began in January 2003, 70,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million people have fled their homes, seeking safety. As government-backed militias and rebels fight, nomads and displaced people flee into regions of increasing drought and creeping desert. Limited grazing, lost harvests, and poor pasture force tribes to converge on adjoining areas, heightening tensions between them.

In the refugee camp of Abushawk, Darfur, there were 12,000 donkeys a year ago but between 8,000 and 10,000 died during the dry season. A feeding program was started last spring by a division of the United Nations but only 1,300 donkeys have survived. Said a spokesperson, "Every family needs at least two donkeys in order to survive."

That need is no different in the Holy Land. Two years ago, after Palestinian territory had been heavily bombed by the Israeli military and roads were rendered useless for vehicles, the value of donkeys in Bethlehem soared as they made a transportation comeback. Donkeys that were peddled for a few shekels suddenly became sought-after stock-in-trade, especially young females that did double-duty as breeding stock. As one seller said, "...everyone needs a donkey."

Two thousand years ago, everyone needed a donkey then, too. The road to Bethlehem was fraught with danger from thugs, thieves, and a mounted Roman invasion force. Trails worn smooth by millions of hooves criss-crossed the land of the Philistines, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In the time of Mary and Joseph and the pending birth, it was a place of climatic contrasts from the lush valleys of olive groves and grape vines to the rocky, wind-lashed highlands of Judea and Samaria, heartland of the Hebrew world.

Their journey then was simple and urgent, made all the more so by Mary's late stage of pregnancy. The 100-kilometre journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem would be made a little easier with their sure-footed donkey but the daily mantra was to keep going. Later, after Jesus' birth, they were forced to pack up and flee Bethlehem for Egypt to avoid the tyranny of Herod.

It's not too much of a stretch to see a parallel plight between the Biblical story of a displaced family and the torment of thousands displaced in Sudan. Then as now, the haunting image endures of a family on the road with a donkey. Caught in the cross hairs of conflict, rule of law, tribal upheaval, or political crisis, they are refugees in a moment in space and time, caught with all of us seeking peace and a better world. Do they know it's Christmas? Perhaps the real question is: Will they ever know it's Christmas...

Read Margaret Evans' column "In The Shadow Of Equus" each month in The Pacific & Prairie Horse Journal