UN refugee agency reports new exodus of Sudanese escaping into Chad

The United Nations refugee agency is monitoring the border between Chad and Sudan following reports that 18,000 additional Sudanese refugees have crossed into Chad this week to escape fighting in the Darfur region.

The new refugees join some 95,000 other Sudanese who have fled to Chad since early last year after conflict erupted in Darfur, in western Sudan, between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

Officials from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Chadian refugee authorities have been registering the new arrivals and providing them with supplies of blankets, jerry cans and food.

A UNHCR spokesman, Kris Janowski, said today that the refugees told local agency staff that Sudanese forces attacked 10 villages in Darfur early in the morning last Friday, burning houses and dynamiting wells. Many people fled immediately and told the UNHCR they fear for their lives if they return to Darfur.

The refugees are scattered along the border in makeshift shelters, although some are reported to have headed further inside Chad.

Last week UNHCR began relocating refugees to newly constructed camps inside Chad to protect them from cross-border raids by Sudanese militias. So far 621 people have been transferred to a camp at Farchana.

The refugee problem on the border with Chad has emerged as Khartoum and rebel groups in the country's south have begun to make progress on ending their 20-year civil war. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has also been working on demobilizing child soldiers ahead of the conclusion of the conflict.

With the help of a UNICEF-funded task force, one of the rebel groups, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), has begun to demobilize the child soldiers among its ranks in the Western Upper Nile region. The first batch of 94 children has been released, with more than 700 other children expected to follow this week.

About 2500 child soldiers will then remain in the SPLA, mainly in more unstable areas than the Western Upper Nile region. UNICEF said it hopes to demobilize those children before a peace deal is signed.