U.N: 30,000 refugees fled western Sudan conflict in December
GENEVA, Jan 06, 2004 (AP) — Tens of thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, have fled fighting in western Sudan in the past four weeks, bringing close to 100,000 the number who have escaped the country’s Darfur region since conflict began there early last year, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said 30,000 Sudanese crossed into neighboring Chad in December alone, many arriving on foot and traveling at night to avoid attacks by militias who have looted villages and stolen livestock.
A total of 95,000 people are now believed to have entered Chad since Sudan Liberation Army rebels seeking autonomy for Darfur started battling Sudanese government troops and government-backed militias in February 2003.
A Sept. 3 cease-fire brokered by Chad was to have been formalized in early December but talks broke down over “unacceptable demands” from the rebels, mediators said.
Redmond told reporters that the refugees are scattered in dozens of makeshift camps along a 600-kilometer (373-mile) stretch of remote, insecure borderland between Sudan and Chad. “They are subjected to periodic raids by bandits and marauding militias from across the border, and many are in dire need of assistance,” he said.
UNHCR and other relief agencies have distributed food in the border area, but their work is hampered by security problems. Later this month, UNHCR plans to begin moving the refugees to camps farther inside Chad, away from the volatile border area, said Redmond.
Around 670,000 also have fled to other parts of Sudan to escape the Darfur fighting.
The Sudanese government is holding peace talks with rebels from another group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which has been fighting in the south since the 1980s. That conflict as well as a famine has cost an estimated 2 million lives and uprooted about 5 million people, around 1 million of them fleeing to neighboring Uganda, Chad, Ethiopia and Kenya.