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Security situation in eastern Chad still extremely volatile

Briefing Notes, 6 October 2006

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 6 October 2006, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The security situation throughout eastern Chad remains extremely volatile as unidentified armed groups continue to operate in the region and frequently target humanitarian workers. In the past 10 days, three more vehicles belonging to humanitarian agencies were stolen by unidentified armed men in the region of Guéréda and Bahai.

Unsuccessful attempts were also made to steal two other vehicles, which involved acts of violence against humanitarian workers. In one of the incidents, a group of armed men wearing military uniforms stormed the premises of a humanitarian agency and held all staff at gunpoint while attempting to steal the agency's pick-up truck. When this failed, they proceeded to another agency's compound and repeated the same scenario, taking humanitarian staff hostage. Warned of the situation, the Chadian gendarmerie intervened by firing in the air, causing the assailants to flee. All hostages were unharmed.

This succession of incidents brings to a staggering total of 40 the number of cars that have been stolen from humanitarian agencies operating in eastern Chad in less than one year – since November 2005. To date, only about half of these cars have been recovered, and no one has been arrested for these crimes.

The precarious security situation also has a direct impact on the work of humanitarian actors in safely accessing some refugee camps. We need to drive in convoys with armed escorts provided by the Chadian government to six of the 12 refugee camps. However, one concrete measure to provide greater security for humanitarian workers, refugees, and the Chadian host populations is the signing of a memorandum of understanding at the end of September between the government and UNHCR. Thanks to this agreement, 75 additional Chadian gendarmes will be posted among UNHCR's five operational hubs serving the current 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad – Bahai, Iriba, Guéréda, Farchana and Goz Beida. They will be joining more than 200 gendarmes already deployed throughout eastern Chad to ensure a 5 km security perimeter around each of the refugee camps. Gendarmes will undergo training sessions regarding international law and humanitarian assistance. The training will be organized by UNHCR and its partners.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, we began the transfer of 284 Sudanese refugees from the border in the Guéréda area to Kounoungou refugee camp. The group arrived last August in Seneit, a small village located 5 km from the Chad-Sudan border, following the continuing deterioration of the security situation at the border and in nearby Darfur. Another 900 refugees, who have been living in the area since 2005, have likewise expressed their interest in being moved to the camp after the November harvest. The group, currently totalling over 1,000 people, is a mix of recent arrivals and others who fled Darfur as long as one year ago.

Together with our partner agencies, we are currently assisting some 213,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur in eastern Chad, as well as tens of thousands of Chadian displaced persons. There are also some 46,000 refugees from the Central African Republic in three camps in southern Chad.

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Darfuri Refugees in Chad: No end in Sight

More than six years after the beginning of the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, more than a quarter-of-a-million refugees remain displaced in neighbouring Chad. Most of the refugees are women and children and many are still traumatized after fleeing across the border after losing almost everything in land and air raids on their villages.

Families saw their villages being burned, their relatives being killed and their livestock being stolen. Women and girls have been victims of rape, abuse and humiliation, and many have been ostracized by their own communities as a result.

The bulk of the refugees live in 12 camps run by UNHCR in the arid reaches of eastern Chad, where natural resources such as water and firewood are scarce. They have been able to resume their lives in relative peace, but all hope one day to return to Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of their compatriots are internally displaced.

In eastern Chad, UNHCR and other agencies are helping to take care of 180,000 internally displaced Chadians, who fled inter-ethnic clashes in 2006-2007. Some families are starting to return to their villages of origin only now.

Darfuri Refugees in Chad: No end in Sight

Chad's other refugee crisis

While attention focuses on the Darfuris in eastern Chad, another refugee crisis unfolds in southern Chad.

A second refugee crisis has been quietly unfolding in the south of Chad for the past few years, getting little attention from the media and the international community. Some 60,000 refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) are hosted there in five camps and receive regular assistance from UNHCR. But funding for aid and reintegration projects remains low. Refugees have been fleeing fighting between rebel groups and governmental forces in northern CAR. 17,000 new refugees have arrived from northern CAR to south-eastern Chad since the beginning of 2009.

Chad's other refugee crisis

Crisis in the Central African Republic

Little has been reported about the humanitarian crisis in the northern part of the Central African Republic (CAR), where at least 295,000 people have been forced out of their homes since mid-2005. An estimated 197,000 are internally displaced, while 98,000 have fled to Chad, Cameroon or Sudan. They are the victims of fighting between rebel groups and government forces.

Many of the internally displaced live in the bush close to their villages. They build shelters from hay, grow vegetables and even start bush schools for their children. But access to clean water and health care remains a huge problem. Many children suffer from diarrhoea and malaria but their parents are too scared to take them to hospitals or clinics for treatment.

Cattle herders in northern CAR are menaced by the zaraguina, bandits who kidnap children for ransom. The villagers must sell off their livestock to pay.

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