Hundreds of Chadian refugees taken to U.N. camp in Darfur

March 20, 2007 (GENEVA) — More than 200 Chadians, forced to flee to neighboring Darfur because of violence in their own country, have been moved to a camp further inside the volatile Sudanese region, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Ron Redmond, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, said the agency was preparing for a further flight of civilians away from the lawless border between Chad and Darfur.

Some 20,000 Chadians already have crossed to Darfur since the end of 2005, UNHCR said. The migration has occurred despite unabated violence and human rights abuses committed in Darfur by government-backed janjaweed militias and rebels. More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced by four years of fighting in Darfur.

“The high commissioner has been warning for months about the spreading insecurity throughout that region, with Darfur as the epicenter, affecting eastern Chad and the Central African Republic to the south,” Redmond told The Associated Press.

He said general lawlessness in the region was causing people to flee in both directions across the unmarked frontier.

The Chadians were fleeing “janjaweed-style attacks, some of them by domestic groups, some of them believed to have come across the border from Darfur,” Redmond said.

Even as some of the assailants could be based in Darfur, Redmond said more Chadians might be forced to seek refuge in the region.

“They go in whichever direction is safest at the time,” Redmond said. “At the time they couldn’t go west because of these marauding groups.”

UNHCR is preparing for more refugees from Chad by drilling more wells at its Um Shalaya camp, 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of the West Darfur capital of El-Geneina, he said.

(AP)