Two dead in Chad in Darfur refugee camp clash-UN

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) – Two refugees have died in an operation by the Chadian army inside a camp housing people who have fled from Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

Agency officials told a news briefing that the Chad forces moved into the camp on Thursday — at Farchana close to the town of Adre near the Sudanese border — to stem unrest and find people involved in recent attacks on humanitarian workers.

UNHCR officials said there was no immediate explanation of how the refugees died.

There are some 200,000 refugees inside Chad. Most have fled across the border from Darfur to escape what they say are attacks by an Arab Janjaweed militia.

There have been protests against humanitarian workers in the camps amid reports that many refugees view efforts to improve their living conditions as a sign that the international community is resigned to seeing them stay in exile.

A UNHCR statement said the attacks on representatives of non-governmental relief organisations (NGOs) in Farchana — and later in nearby Breidjing camp — had begun on July 13.

In both camps, NGO and UNHCR workers were attacked with stones and knives, and one was seriously injured.

Efforts by the UNHCR and the Chadian government to negotiate with refugee leaders over the past few days have failed. The leaders refused to talk and used megaphones to threaten a handful of refugees who did attend one meeting, the agency said.

UNHCR says the Farchana camp currently houses just under 12,000 Darfur refugees and Breidjing, swollen recently by a new flow of people from Sudan, has some 30,000.

Rebels and human rights groups say the Sudanese government has armed and supported the Janjaweed, while the government says they are outlaws and it has started a campaign to disarm them.