Aid workers say Darfur refugees expected in Chad with rains ending
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer
IRIBA, Chad, Sep 26, 2004 (AP) — U.N. refugee workers are readying themselves for an influx of refugees from Darfur as people in the western Sudan region take advantage of the end of the rainy season and a promised government clampdown on militia violence.
“People who are feeling insecurity because of being attacked, as soon as the wadis (riverbeds) become more dry, we will start to see them cross over,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The rainy season is now ending and the desert straddling the Chad-Sudan border is becoming more easy to traverse.
“It is really a race against time to prevent an increase,” Lubbers said, speaking in Iriba, a Chadian town 70 kilometers (50 miles) from the border with Sudan’s Darfur.
Refugees say they are fleeing airstrikes by Sudanese planes followed by raids by pro-government militiamen on camels and horses. The militia, an Arab group called Janjaweed, are accused of conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur’s people of African origin, burning their villages and killing and raping.
An estimated 50,000 people — mostly of African origin — have died. The United States, the European Parliament and others say the campaign amounts to genocide, a charge rejected by Sudan’s Arab-dominated government, which also denies backing the Janjaweed.
An estimated 1.4 million people have been displaced by the violence in Darfur. Nearly 200,000 refugees have fled across the border to Chad.
The U.N. refugee agency has contingency plans for up to 70,000 more refugees crossing into Chad before the end of the year, and another 100,000 in 2005.
The U.N. Security Council warned Khartoum earlier this month it would consider imposing sanctions on Sudan’s oil exports unless the government disarmed the militia and halted the violence in Darfur. The government protested the resolution as unfair, but said it would try to bring peace to Darfur.
Lubbers said there has been a reduction in militia attacks on Darfur’s people. However, refugees in Chad do not acknowledge this.
“There is no safety in Sudan,” said Shardia Mousa, a resident of Iridimi refugee camp in eastern Chad. Mousa said she fled to Chad after an airstrike killed her sons.
She said the refugees who return to Sudan to fetch their livestock in Darfur never come back.
“They meet the Janjaweed, and the government,” she said.
Perversely, if the government were to disarm the Janjaweed, as it has pledged to do, the immediate effect would probably be a greater flow of refugees to Chad, aid workers forecast. They say many of the people remaining in Darfur are so frightened that if travel became safe, they would take the opportunity and go to Chad.
Another factor likely to boost an exodus to Chad is shortage of food. The violence has meant that Darfur’s people did not do much planting this spring, so the harvest will be minimal.
The conflict began in early 2003 when two Darfur rebel groups of African origin took up arms, calling for autonomy and accusing the government of neglecting the region and discriminating against Sudanese Africans.
Foreign powers are trying to press the rebels and the government to return to the negotiating table. Two previous rounds of peace talks collapsed without any agreement, the latest earlier this month in Nigeria.
Lubbers has called on the government to grant autonomy to Darfur, a demand that Khartoum has resisted in previous negotiations.