Niger: Senior UNHCR Benin staffer to follow up reported plan to expel remote Mahamid nomads
Briefing Notes, 27 October 2006
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 27 October 2006, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
We've had several calls on the reported plans by Niger to expel thousands of Mahamid Arab nomads to Chad. We do not have an office in Niger, but a senior UNHCR staff member from our regional office in Benin is travelling to Niger to get more information on the reports. He is expected to travel to the remote Diffa region in the eastern part of Niger, where there are an estimated 100-150,000 Mahamid Arabs, some of whom have lived in the region for decades.
The Diffa region is about 1,400 km from Niamey, Niger's capital, on the eastern border with Chad. It will take a few days to get there. The Mahamid Arabs have not previously been considered a population of concern to UNHCR. So we want to get more detailed information on the government's announced plans and on specifically who these people are.
We understand the Mahamid Arabs have large numbers of livestock, including an estimated 100,000 camels, and are putting a big strain on meagre water and grazing resources.
UNHCR is in contact with Niger authorities and we're following the situation closely. We will be looking at whether the proposed government actions could result in statelessness for anyone expelled; if any of these people could be considered refugees; and what conditions or problems they could face if returned to Chad.
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.
Posted on 21 February 2008
Crisis in the Central African Republic
Chad: Influx from Central African Republic
The conflict in Central African Republic (CAR) receives far less media attention than that in Darfur, but the effects are much the same. More than 17,000 people have crossed into Chad since January, bringing the total number of CAR refugees to almost 70,000.
Chad: Environmental Challenges
The search for water and firewood is a daily trial for the 250,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur in eastern Chad. The UN has found ways to alleviate the problems.
Violence In Eastern Chad
In eastern Chad, continued violence threatens the UN refugee agency's fragile humanitarian lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees and tens of thousands of displaced Chadians.
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