Food aid arrives at new site in eastern Chad

UNHCR and its partners have delivered 66 tonnes of WFP food for some 3,000 Sudanese refugees who have gathered at Am Nabak, where UNHCR plans to build a camp. Meanwhile, refugees at Iridimi camp have started moving out of makeshift shelters into proper tents.

By Jennifer Clark

18 June 2004

A refugee surrounded by makeshift shelters at Iridimi camp in eastern Chad. Proper tents have now been set up.

AM NABAK, June 18 (UNHCR) - Aid agencies have started sending aid to thousands of Sudanese refugees who have gathered at a site in eastern Chad where UNHCR is planning to build a camp.

On Friday, the UN refugee agency and its partners transferred 66 tonnes of food provided by the UN World Food Programme to Am Nabak in eastern Chad. Some 3,000 Sudanese refugees started arriving here in early June after travelling from the border towns of Ogona and Tine. The refugees will receive the food supplies in the coming days, and the rations of rice, beans, corn soya blend and oil are expected to last them for one month.

Non-governmental organisations working with UNHCR are working to open the camp at Am Nabak as soon as possible. CARE will oversee camp management, IMC will cover health needs, Oxfam will deal with water and sanitation, and GTZ will handle the actual construction of the camp.

UNHCR has been rushing to relocate refugees away from the insecure Chad-Sudan border before the onset of seasonal rains renders roads impassable to its trucks. So far, more than 106,000 Sudanese refugees have moved to eight camps further inland in eastern Chad.

"Our priority has been to move the refugees as quickly as possible away from the border for security reasons, and so temporary accommodations were made on some of the sites until the camps could be made fully ready," said UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski at a news briefing in Geneva Friday.

At Iridimi camp, refugees this week began moving into tents from the transit centre part of the camp, where they had been living in makeshift shelters built from UNHCR plastic sheeting and branches. UNHCR's partner, the Norwegian Church Aid, has so far erected 300 five-person tents and the work is continuing.

Janowski also noted that UNHCR completed on Tuesday the airlift of emergency relief supplies from Tanzania to Chad. In all, 40 flights from Tanzania, Pakistan, Denmark, Germany and Gibraltar have brought in more than 1,700 tonnes of aid so far this year