Southern Chad: Registration of new Central African refugees starts

In southern Chad, working with the Chadian authorities, we have started to screen and register an estimated 2,600 Central African refugees in the village of Bedakoussang, 10 km from the border with the Central African Republic (CAR), and 35 km from Goré, the main town in southern Chad. The refugees have been fleeing their villages in the insecure northern CAR following fighting in the Papoua area at the end of January. As of the beginning of this month, refugees were still arriving in the Bedakoussang area.

Last Friday, a group of 321 refugees was transferred to the camp we run in Amboko. We plan to move more refugees from Bedakoussang to camps in southern Chad this week, where we are better able to offer them services.

An estimated 7,000 refugees from CAR have arrived in south Chad since the beginning of the year. In total, there are 46,000 CAR refugees in Chad in three sites in the southern part of the country. Chad also hosts 200,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region in 12 camps in the east.