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Top UN relief official visits displaced people in eastern Chad

Top UN relief official visits displaced people in eastern Chad

Soldiers with the Chadian army in the town of Adre near the Sudanese border
The United Nations humanitarian chief today visited a region of eastern Chad where tens of thousands of people have been displaced by inter-communal fighting and a spill-over of the conflict from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan.

On the second day of a visit to Chad, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes went to the Sila region, east of Abeche, where he visited Gourounkoun, a site for over 20,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been affected by this year’s drought and poor harvest.

“Basic social services should be upgraded both in the IDP sites and in the villages of return as well,” he said, emphasizing the need to create conductive conditions for their safe and dignified return to their homes.

He discussed key issues such as the lack of water and security concerns, and met with local authorities to discuss these concerns and IDP returns to their villages.

Mr. Holmes, who yesterday visited the Bredjing refugee camp near the border with Sudan, also toured the villages of Tiero and Marena, home to about 6,000 people who returned there in 2008. One-on-one discussions focused on their difficulty in obtaining basic social services, including potable water, education, and health care.

Tomorrow, Mr. Holmes will travel to Mao in the west of Chad to review food insecurity and malnutrition first hand, and on Wednesday he is due to go on to Sudan, his fifth official visit to Africa’s largest country, to assess conditions in the south, which is scheduled to hold a referendum on independence earlier next year as part of a 2005 peace accord that ended 20 years of civil war with the northern-based national Government.

He will travel to Wau, in Western Bar el Ghazal state, and to Warrap state to examine food insecurity, aid to IDPs, and rising concerns about inter-tribal violence, as well as meeting in Juba with Southern Sudanese Government officials and representatives from the UN and non-government organizations (NGOs).

Mr. Ban will also evaluate the humanitarian situation in Darfur, where despite peace efforts fighting continues in a seven-year conflict between the Government and rebels in which some 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed and 2.7 million more driven from their homes.

He will visit IDPs and assess efforts to provide resettlement options. In talks with local authorities and humanitarian agencies, he will also look into ongoing efforts to reach populations in need of aid. On the final day of his mission on 30 May, he will meet with members of the national Government and UN and NGO representatives in Khartoum, the capital.