Head of UN refugee agency says Sudanese in Chad are in trouble

NDJAMENA, March 5 (AFP) — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, has warned that scores of thousands of Sudanese refugees in inhospitable eastern Chad face “problems of sanitation and access to drinking water”.

Lubbers on Thursday wound up a three-day visit to the impoverished central African country to assess the plight of people who have fled across the border from fighting in Sudan’s western Darfur province.

“We’re working to solve the logistical problems faced by these refugees, in cooperation with NGOs (non-governmental organisations),” Lubbers told a press conference before leaving the country.

“There’s no question of repatriation for the moment,” he said, answering a question about Sudanese President Omar al-Bechir’s claim that government troops and allied militias had wrested “total control” of the province back from rebel forces. This assertion has been denied by the rebels.

“There is enormous hostility right now between the Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government,” Lubbers said, adding that Chadian “President Idriss Deby could play an important part” in mediating the conflict.

“We’re currently working on the basis that there are 110,000 refugees, while we’re continuing a census, because most of them are nomadic,” the head of the UN agency added.

Fighting broke out in Darfur in February last year and is estimated to have claimed about 3,000 lives and displaced 670,000 Sudanese people.

On his arrival in Chad on Tuesday, Lubbers headed straight for Achebe, a town 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the border with Darfur province, to have talks there with Deby, an AFP correspondent reported.

UNHCR spokeswoman Helene Caux said Lubbers would then head on to Forchana, a town closer to the border where some of the camps are based, and to Touloum near the Chadian frontier town of Tine.

UNHCR staff were working to relocate the refugees, Lubbers said, to avoid security problems close to the border.