UN moving some refugees in Chad due to Darfur risk

Oct 6, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — The U.N. refugee agency is moving several hundred Sudanese refugees in Chad away from the border to avoid an increased risk of violence in the Darfur region and from local rebels, a spokesman said on Friday.

The UNHCR is assisting some 213,000 Sudanese in eastern Chad who have fled fighting in Darfur, the western Sudanese region where ethnic and political violence has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than two million since 2003.

Matthew Conway, UNHCR spokesman in Chad, said refugees sheltering near the border were asking to be moved further into Chad because of the deteriorating situation in Darfur, where Sudan’s government refuses to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force.

In addition, Chad’s eastern border region had recently seen renewed clashes between Chadian government troops and rebels seeking to overthrow President Idriss Deby.

“There are fears that the situation is deteriorating further in Darfur, with refugees risking being caught between the two fires, Darfur and the Chadian rebellion,” Conway told Reuters.

“It’s an ongoing state of generalised insecurity and we would like to get them to a safe haven,” he added.

UNHCR this week began transferring an initial group of 284 refugees from a border area to an established refugee camp.

An additional 921 refugees, who had been living in the region since 2005, had also expressed interest to move to the camp after the November harvest.

UNHCR had recently also signed an agreement with the Chadian government to increase security around its 12 camps housing Darfur refugees in eastern Chad.

An additional 75 Chadian gendarmes were being deployed by the government to join the existing 200 who already provided protection around the camps, which have sometimes been the target of raids by rebels and militias in the past.

“It helps, but with the size of the territory we’re dealing with, it’s not enough,” Conway said.

In less than a year, raiders have stolen 40 vehicles from humanitarian agencies in eastern Chad, and the UNHCR needs to drive in convoys with armed government escorts to reach six of its 12 camps.

UNHCR officials say the deployment of an effective U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, so far resisted by Khartoum, is the best way to guarantee security along the Chad-Sudan border.

But they have also raised the idea of a separate international force of European soldiers to beef up protection for the refugee camps in eastern Chad.

(Reuters)