AFRICA/CHAD -100,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad receive concrete international solidarity. Jesuit Refugee Service and UNHCR provide assistance and safety

Monday, 22 March 2004

N’Djamena (Fides Service) - There are still 100,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad. Various international agencies are intervening to provide assistance.
“We are working with the N’Djamena diocesan Caritas office” Father Luis Magrina, international director of Jesuit Refugee Service told Fides. The head of the Society of Jesus in Rome, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, asked the JRS to provide assistance to Sudanese refugees in Chad. Recently a call for help for Sudanese refugees in Chad was launched by the Archbishop of N’Djamena, Archbishop Matias N'Garteri (see Fides 15 March 2004). Father Magrina told Fides that the work of JRS “consists mainly in assuring primary and secondary education for the children; social assistance to the weaker categories, the children and the elderly; education to peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately these refugees will probably have to stay in the camps for some time in difficult conditions, also because of bad climatic and environment conditions”.
UNHCR, UN High Commission for Refugees, is distributing WFP food supplies sent by the United Nations World Food Program, buckets, soap and water-cans supplied by UNICEF, and UNHCR mattresses and blankets. The distribution is being co-ordinated by local NGO Care Chad. The refugees present in Bahai reached Chad in late January, early February, after their villages were bombed from the air and attacked by militiamen.
Yesterday March 21, operations started to move refugees to new transit centres as part of a programme to transfer them from dangerous border areas to safer interior zones. Refugees in the border town of Tine are being moved to Iridimi, 7 km. north west of Iriba. Water for the camp site will be carried from Iriba, until, within the next two weeks, wells have been dug by partner agency Norwegian Church Aid. To meet the needs of 7,000 refugees, between 80 and 100 litres a day will be transported.
So far 11,958 refugees have been moved to three safer sites further inland: 2,756 to Farchana camp, 3,398 to Kounoungo camp, 5,804 to Touloum camp. Transfer operations from the border zone to Farchana and Kounoungo camps continue but not to Touloum because of problems with water supplies. In a report sent to Fides UNHCR says that so far it has received “only 9.2 million dollars of the 20,8 million requested for operations in east Chad in 2004”.
(L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 22/3/2004, righe 41 parole 501)


Share: