Sudanese refugees pouring into Chad a major challenge: UNHCR
By Beatrice Debut
ABECHE, Chad, Jan 25 (AFP) — The UN refugee agency said that it would be a major challenge to cope with over 100,000 impoverished Sudanese refugees who have spilled across the border into Chad to escape increasing violence in their homeland.
“Logistically speaking this mission is a major challenge. Water is the main problem in this arid region,” Yvan Sturm, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) coordinator for eastern Chad, said here Sunday.
“We have to sink wells to reach the water table. For 100,000 refugees we will have to spend about two million dollars just on the wells,” said Sturm, who is based in the Chadian town of Abeche.
Sturm said an additional problem was safety, as refugees remained close to the border and were in danger of coming under attack.
“Indeed it is because of problems of security that we have pushed back to this week the distribution of food and equipment in the south between Ade and Tizi,” he added.
The Sudanese army and armed militias have waged a fierce battle against rebels in the Darfur region since February last year.
The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) launched a rebellion originally to protest against alleged government neglect of the semi-desert region. The rebellion has cost some 3,000 lives, according to UN estimates.
The rebels also want a share of the region’s growing oil revenues.
Sturm said the situation on the ground would get worse and that it was now a race against time to bring proper help to the refugees.
“We have a window of five months before the start of the rainy season which will make the roads impassable,” he said.
“Up to now solidarity with the refugees among local people has been very strong. But that will end because the locals will from now on be living on food they have stocked because we are in the dry season,” he added.
He said the UNHCR could confirm that the number of refugees in Chad had climbed to at least 103,000 following an attack on January 16 by the Sudanese army on a group of villages near the border town of Koulbouss.
“Refugees spoke of bombardments,” Sturm said.
“The Chadian authorities say there have been 18,000 new arrivals. The UNHCR can confirm the presence of 8,000 of those 18,000. They are spread out between Birak and Tine,” he said.
He added that he and his colleagues had not been able to reach the southern section of the frontier zone between Chad and Sudan where the Chadian authorities had said the remaining 10,000 refugees were located.
He also confirmed that one UN camp, designed to accommodate 12,000 people, was already operational at Farachana, 68 kilometres (42 miles) from the border and that the UNHCR had begun transporting refugees there at the rate of about 700 per week.
Construction of another camp was due to begin this week at Kounoungo, located 125 kilometres (75 miles) from the frontier and the aim was to open six camps in all with a capacity of 80,000, Sturm said.