UN refugee agency set to transfer second set of refugees in Chad

United Nations refugee agency staff will tomorrow begin relocating a second batch of Sudanese refugees from the vulnerable border with Chad to safer camps further inside the country.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plans to move all 4,361 refugees registered around Tine, a Chadian border town, to a camp at the town of Touloum, 80 kilometres from the border.

UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said today that the refugees – who have been fleeing violent conflict in western Sudan’s Darfur region – have told agency staff they want to move away from Tine and the border as soon as possible because they do not feel safe there.

Last week, Sudanese Government forces bombed rebel positions in Tine-Sudan, a few hundred metres from where the refugees had gathered after leaving their villages inside Sudan. There have also been frequent cross-border raids on the refugees’ temporary shelters by militia groups.

Some 350 refugees will travel tomorrow to a transit centre in Touloum, where they will live for two weeks until a full-fledged camp is constructed there. The remainder of the Tine refugees will travel over the next week.

Mr. Redmond said UNHCR and the Chadian Red Cross have started informing the refugees about how the transfer process, using trucks and buses, will work.

Once the refugees reach the Touloum centre, they will receive 15 days worth of grain and beans from the World Food Programme (WFP). UNHCR will also supply blankets, soap, jerry cans and mats.

The Tine refugees are the second batch to be moved by UNHCR from the border to safer sites inside Chad. Since 17 January refugees have been transferred from the town of Wandalou to a newly constructed camp at Farchana.

UNHCR staff are also preparing to relocate refugees currently living in makeshift shelters in the Ogona region, south of Tine, and in the village of Birak, to the north.

More than 110,000 refugees are estimated to have fled Darfur since March last year, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). Many of the refugees have reported violent attacks on their home villages.