Rebel recruitment, banditry threaten Chad camps – UN
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Recruitment by Darfur rebel groups in camps in eastern Chad and worsening banditry in the area are threatening aid supplies to hundreds of thousands of refugees, the U.N. humanitarian chief said on Wednesday.
John Holmes, who has just visited Chad and Sudan, told the U.N. Security Council that the “politicization and militarization” of the camps were “major and increasing concerns.”
There are half a million refugees in Chad, some from Chad itself but including more than half from neighboring Darfur, the western Sudanese region where government forces, allied militias and rebel groups have been fighting for five years.
Holmes singled out one of the main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), for recruiting fighters, some of them children, in Chad. This, he said, was “threatening the civilian and humanitarian nature of the camps.”
“This needs to stop if the humanitarian effort is to be able to continue successfully,” Holmes said, adding that the U.N. refugee agency had been unable to deliver aid in one camp for two months.
Sudan and Chad accuse each other of allowing rebel groups to recruit on their territory. The capitals of both countries were attacked by rebels this year.
Holmes said banditry had worsened in the area and was the biggest single concern for aid workers there. There had been 160 serious incidents this year, including the murder of the team leader of the charity Save the Children.
The banditry was encouraged by the proliferation of small arms, the presence of armed militias and “more or less total impunity for those responsible,” Holmes said.
EUFOR, the 3,000-strong mostly French European Union peacekeeping force in Chad and Central African Union, had been unable to tackle the problem, he added, in remarks echoing comments in September by international charity Oxfam.
EUFOR’s mandate is due to expire in March, and the force is due to be replaced by a U.N. mission. Holmes called on the council to ensure the mission had the resources to cover the area it will be assigned to.
Chad’s U.N. Ambassador Ahmad Allam-mi told the council his government believed that “overall there has been an improvement in the situation as compared with what it was a year ago” thanks to national efforts and the deployment of EUFOR.
“We hope that the new MINURCAT (the U.N. mission) … will effectively meet the expectations of … the refugees, displaced persons and of course the local population,” he said, denying that his country supported Sudanese rebels.
(ST)