UN reduces Chad activities, due to violence

May 16, 2008 (GENEVA) — The U.N. refugee agency Friday said it had scaled down activities and staff movements in Chad due to escalating violence in the east of the country.

“We are very concerned by the escalating violence which has accelerated in the past three months,” Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.

“We fear that the attack on Khartoum last weekend would further destabilize the security situation in the east,” she said.

The aid agency said that “as a precautionary measure, we have restricted movements of staff and are carrying out only essential tasks such as follow-up on protection cases, food and water distribution and health assistance.”

It added that it was “shocked” by an incident on Wednesday when two gendarmes providing security for the Touloum refugee camp were attacked and killed by three armed men.

Another two gendarmes were severely wounded in the incident, the agency said.

Those attacks came a day after three armed men hijacked a vehicle belonging to UNHCR partners and drove to another refugee camp where they hijacked another vehicle belonging to a local non-governmental organization.

On May 1, the head of the Save the Children mission was killed, while in April the driver of the NGO was also killed, the agency said.

Chad is overwhelmed by the refugee crisis along its border with Sudan, its foreign minister told AFP earlier, urging the international community to step in and resolve the Darfur conflict.

Some 250,000 refugees have flooded into Chad from the civil war that has been ravaging the neighboring Sudanese province of Darfur for the past five years, with another 190,000 people driven from their homes.

(AFP)