Chad denies area near Darfur border insecure

NDJAMENA, Jan 16 (AFP) — Chad Prime Minister Moussa Facki Mahamat on Sunday refuted allegations that the area near the border with Sudan’s troubled western region of Darfur where many refugees were housed in camps was insecure.

Sudanese displaced people wait to receive food supplies from the World Food Programme (WFP). (AFP).

“I’ve just come back from eastern Chad. During two weeks of traveling I heard nothing of any attacks near the refugee camps in the Goz-Beida,” Mahamat told AFP.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report seen by AFP Saturday that attacks by unidentified men on Chadian villages near the Sudanese border killed 15 villagers.

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) and forced them to limit their activities.

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.

Mahamat said that in eastern Chad there were two incidents, an attack by bandits on a convoy of commercial trucks and a clash between farm laborers and owners, but no attacks on villages.

“Besides these incidents nothing has happened that would threaten the security of the refugees or those who live near their camps,” said the prime minister.

“We have increased the security assigned to the region and all is calm,” he said.