Caritas Calls for Aid for Sudanese Refugees
VATICAN CITY, May 3, 2004 (Caritas) — Caritas Chad is calling upon the international community to respond to the refugee crisis in Chad and Sudan before it becomes a humanitarian tragedy. Pierre Sou Ngadoy Ngaba of Caritas Chad says it is imperative the world be made aware of the plight of the refugees pouring into Chad from Sudan.
Caritas Chad is running three of the five camps for Sudanese refugees in Chad. Most of the 19,000 people being treated at the camps are women, children, and the elderly from the ravaged Sudanese city of Dafur. At present, the camps are only able to care for about ten percent of the total number of refugees currently in Chad.
A flood of approximately 150,000 Sudanese refugees poured into Chad over the last year to escape the violence raging in their country from the on-going civil war. The majority of the casualties of the war have been civilian, with thousands of people killed in deliberate or indiscriminate attacks last year alone.
The local Caritas has done what it can to alleviate the suffering of the refugees, but the situation is so serious that Archbishop Ngarteri, on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference of Chad, called upon the outside world to intervene to prevent a humanitarian disaster from occurring. Likewise, the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, after a recent visit to Chad, launched an appeal to the international community.
The Archbishop is promoting advocacy initiatives to raise awareness of this human tragedy, to not only appeal for international aid, but to ask the leading nations of the north to bring pressure to bear on those taking part in the conflict to lay down their arms and seek a political solution.
The refugees’ journey from their villages in Sudan to the camps is an arduous one. Once they cross over the Sudan-Chad border, refugees must trek fifty kilometres over arid, semi-desert to various sites where refugees congregate. To survive the harsh elements, they construct makeshift shelters from straw until they are taken by truck to camps, with their animals walking alongside. The refugees are finally settled in one of three camps set up by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and run by Caritas Chad.
Archbishop Matthias Ngarteri of N’Djaména sent a team to eastern Chad to assess the needs of the refugees there followed by another Caritas team to provide relief. The teams found it impossible to provide everyone with the minimum amount of basic necessities, such as water or vaccinations for children as well as the animals. These realities, combined with overcrowding and the high risk of the spread of diseases, add up to a potential humanitarian disaster. Five cases of meningitis have recently been discovered, and animals have also been found with serious infections.
In addition to the thousands of refugees in Chad, Mr. Sou Ngadoy Ngaba said even more displaced people are in need within Sudan, because the Sudanese government is not currently allowing humanitarian organisations access to them.
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organisations present in over 200 countries and territories.