It’s difficult to be a peacekeeping force when there’s no peace to keep. It’s difficult when the international community promises you 26,000 peacekeepers, then struggles to give you 10,000. It’s difficult to make much progress when the number of rebel movements involved in the conflict has risen from a handful to more than 30 in the space of two years. And it’s especially difficult to succeed when government militias take it upon themselves to start killing your peacekeepers.

The name on our neighbours’ doorbell is self-effacing in the extreme. “Bangladesh”, it says simply, as if the 15 or so fellows crammed into a small flat downstairs have no identities to call their own bar their nationality. Seven days a week, I see them setting off for work, mostly in pairs. They sell tourist tat at the Colosseum, a mere sword’s thrust away, suiting their wares to the weather: knock-off Aviators, flimsy tele­scopic brollies or this sweltering summer’s bestseller – Japanese-style paper parasols.

Trade is brisk until the police launch a raid. Then the Bangladeshis scoop up their sunglasses stall (a square piece of cardboard) and melt into the nearby Colle Oppio park. The police snarl from their Fiats but make little attempt to follow. Half an hour later, our neighbours emerge from hiding-places within the ruined Baths of Trajan and scurry home.