Attacks near Darfur border kill 15 Chadian villagers

NDJAMENA, Jan 15 (AFP) — Attacks by unidentified men on Chadian villages near the border with Sudan’s troubled western region of Darfur killed 15 villagers, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report seen by AFP Saturday.

Chadian soldiers guard the border with Sudan. (AFP/file).

The report said armed men made several raids on villages in Chad’s southeastern region of Goz-Beida, 650 kilometres (400 miles) east of Ndjamena, between January 5 and 11.

Some 15 farmers were killed and a Chadian policeman wounded during the attacks, which sparked concern among staff of the WFP and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the area.

“The region had been calm up to now, but in the past two weeks we have noticed an increased lack of security. This has limited our movements and the extent of our assistance to the local population,” Claire Bourgeois of the UNHC told AFP.

Some 200,000 people have fled into Chad from Darfur following the outbreak in February 2003 of a rebellion against the Khartoum government.

The conflict, pitting mainly black African rebel groups against Arab militia in the pay of Khartoum, has claimed the lives of 70,000 people and displaced 1.5 million others.