AFRICA/CHAD - Emergency refugees, mostly children orphaned or separated from their parents

N'Djamena (Agenzia Fides) - Thousands of Chadians, most of them children, are returning to their Country of origin in order to escape the insecurity and instability of the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR), Darfur, Libya and Nigeria. Many children arrive alone, because orphaned or separated from their parents. The returnees, in search of a safe haven in the remote border regions of the Country, are in need of emergency aid, basic food, health care. According to local sources, due to the instability of neighboring Countries, refugees continue to arrive in Chad from Sudan (Tissi), Libya (Faya), Nigeria (N'Gouboua) and the CAR. There are no funds and infrastructure, moreover in remote areas of Chad there is great insecurity. In the city of Tissi, on the border with Darfur, out of 22,000 Chadian refugees 15,826, 72% are children; of the 1,300 Nigerian refugees, 771 are children, 60%, and they live in the village of N'Gouboua and 268 children are completely alone. From Nigeria, Chadian students of Koranic schools have come back. A wave of clashes in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, between the ethnic groups of the Misseriya and Salamat, has forced thousands of people to flee. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Chad, between the months of January and April at least 30,000 Sudanese arrived in Tissi, most of them women and children. Among the emergencies, children’s education stands out, they have obvious difficulty in integrating in the education system in Chad. UNHCR, the Jesuit Refugee Service, UNICEF and the Chadian Regional Department of Education are promoting summer courses in order to integrate the young refugees in the next school year. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 19/07/2013)