New wave of Central African refugees refugees relocated by UN agency

The United Nations refugee agency has begun relocating some of the thousands of refugees newly arrived in southern Chad from neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) to the Amboko camp – the closest refugee settlement to the border – so that it can better provide for them.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today that so far more than 800 people, many fleeing insecurity in their home villages along with land conflicts, have been transferred to join approximately 21,000 other CAR refugees. Approximately half of the new arrivals cite insecurity in their villages as the reason for leaving.

The transfer began on Tuesday with two convoys departing from the village of Bekoninga, where most of the refugees have been staying since their arrival in Chad. It expects the transfer of all new arrivals to take two weeks and, once completed, Amboko camp will have reached its full capacity of 27,000 people.

Finding a new camp is a high priority for its staff on the ground because it would enable them to cope with any new influx from CAR, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists during a briefing in Geneva, adding that over the weekend it learned of a further 300 new refugees from CAR.

Meanwhile, discussions with authorities are under way to identify a new site, hopefully close to Amboko to fully exploit the settlement’s social infrastructure and services, it added.

Some 4,000 people have crossed the border from CAR into Chad during the past two weeks in the second major wave this year. In June and July, some 10,000 CAR refugees arrived in Chad following clashes between Government forces and unidentified armed groups.

Approximately half of the new arrivals cite insecurity in their villages as the reason for leaving. Reference is made particularly to incidents on 7 and 9 August in the Paoua region of northern CAR. Some of the refugees cite conflicts over land and livestock with cattle breeders of a different ethnic origin as their reason for departure. This is the first time that such conflicts have been advanced as the reason for flight.

There are now more than 35,000 refugees from CAR in southern Chad, most of them hosted in Amboko and Yaroungou refugee camps. The majority have been in Chad since 2003, after fleeing a military coup in CAR.