Chad: UN agency to move refugees away from dangerous Sudan border

Increased banditry and a lack of water are forcing the United Nations refugee agency to relocate more than 16,000 people who fled Darfur, Sudan, for eastern Chad to a camp further away from the border.

“We would like to be sure that the humanitarian character of the refugee camps is respected,” Jennifer Pagonis, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said today in Geneva.

“To ensure the security and protection of the refugees, UNHCR generally recommends camps or sites are at a reasonable distance from international borders as well as other potentially sensitive areas,” she added.

The first relocation of some 3,000 Sudanese refugees to the Mile camp is scheduled for later this month, with the remaining 13,000 refugees expected to move later to a new site yet to be established, according to the agency.

Am Nabak, which was spontaneously established in June 2004 when thousands of Sudanese fled the violence in Darfur, is only 27 kilometres from the Chad/Sudan border.

Drinking water has to be trucked into the site, and security has markedly deteriorated with several recent hijackings of humanitarian aid vehicles, Ms. Pagonis said.

On Thursday, she said, UNHCR and the Chadian Government signed an agreement to increase the security presence in and around all 12 camps in eastern Chad, which house some 200,000 of the approximately 2 million people displaced by fighting between Government forces, pro-government militias and rebels.

“Chadian police officers deployed under this agreement will undergo training on management of humanitarian crises, as well as international law and humanitarian assistance,” she added.

In another development, the UN World Food Programme said it has been forced to cut rations of lentils, sugar and salt for 3.5 million people in Darfur and southern Sudan due to a critically slow response to appeals for its emergency operations in the country.

Assistance received so far totals only 15 per cent of the $746 million target, the agency said.