Sudan: UN agencies fear new surge of Darfur refugees into Chad

United Nations humanitarian workers fear the continuing violence and insecurity plaguing Sudan's Darfur region could drive another 30,000 people over the border into neighbouring Chad, swelling already crowded refugee camps and straining aid agencies' capacities to care for the new arrivals.

The Director of Operations in Sudan for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jean-Marie Fakhouri, this week met hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) at a town in West Darfur who said they will flee to Chad as soon as the area's flooded riverbeds dry up unless they receive credible guarantees of their security.

UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond, briefing journalists today at the agency's headquarters in Geneva, said the IDPs told Mr. Fakhouri they are virtual prisoners inside the West Darfur town of Masteri because the notorious Janjaweed militias attack them as soon as they venture out.

As many as 30,000 IDPs have moved into the area around Masteri to escape Janjaweed attacks, as well as fighting between Sudanese Government forces and two Darfur rebel groups. The Janjaweed are accused of murdering civilians, burning homes and destroying cropland.

Mr. Redmond said UNHCR is alarmed that a sudden surge of 30,000 arrivals - already more than 200,000 Sudanese have fled to eastern Chad - "would put a strain on our ability to care for and feed refugees in our camps there."

Refugees continue to make their own way into Chad from across Darfur's three states, with more than 7,000 people arriving at four of UNHCR's nine refugee camps in eastern Chad in the past month. Thousands of others remain camped along the border between the two countries.

In other humanitarian developments:

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is providing more than 200,000 vaccine doses against measles and polio to help some of the thousands of Sudanese refugee children living in camps in eastern Chad. The agency is also sending 81 tons of food and school supplies to the camps.The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 672 cases of acute jaundice, with 21 recorded deaths, in Goz Amer camp in Chad in the seven weeks until 13 August.The World Food Programme (WFP) said it would launch a donors' appeal next week for more than $40 million to replenish the stocks of food and milk it has recently delivered in Chad to lactating and pregnant mothers and to children aged below five.