President retracts refugee threat, closes Sudan border

The government of Chad has backed down on threats to expel 200,000 Sudanese refugees after linking a series of rebel attacks to Khartoum, but has closed the border with Sudan, threatening aid distribution. The announcements came after a week of attacks on Chadian towns by rebels seeking to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby, culminating in a major assault on the capital N’djamena on Thursday morning which killed and injured more than 200. Deby has repeatedly blamed Sudan for backing the rebels but last week’s threats to expel 200,000 Sudanese refugees sheltering in Chad have been withdrawn according to the UN’s Refugees Agency UNHCR on Monday. “President Deby on Sunday night reaffirmed that refugees will not be forcibly returned and Chad will abide by international principles. President Deby expressed his understandable concern about the difficulties involved in providing security both to the refugees and to the humanitarian organisations that are helping them,” said UNHCR head Antonio Guterres in a statement. Chad has nonetheless closed its land border with Sudan, a move which threatens food distribution for 400,000 displaced people living in camps across the border in Darfur say aid workers. "UNHCR strongly appeals to the international community and its various organisations to do everything possible to urgently establish peace and security in Darfur, which is essential for the stability of the entire region. It is also essential to preserve the security of refugees and internally displaced people in Darfur and Chad, and potentially in other countries of the region as well", said Guterres. Deby had on Friday threatened to expel the Sudanese refugees sheltering in camps in the east of the country, if the UN and African Union (AU) did not resolve the ongoing Darfur conflict in neighbouring Sudan, which Deby said would help restore stability in his own country. Deby blames lawlessness and civil war in the Darfur region of Sudan for the rise of militia groups which have been making raids across the vast open border into eastern Chad since late 2005, and last week attacked the country’s western capital N’djamena. Darfur is described by aid workers as “bandit country” where armed gangs - many of whom are thought to have backing from the Chadian and Sudanese governments – rape and plunder local communities. Explicitly accusing Sudan of backing the rebels, Chad on Friday broke diplomatic ties with Sudan and expelled the Sudanese Ambassador. Khartoum’s foreign ministry has repeatedly denied Chad’s claims that it is backing anti-Deby militia. And on Saturday, Chad’s prime minister told diplomats that an oil consortium operating in the country should pay at least US $100 million by Tuesday or else crude oil production would be frozen. “The petrol is Chadian. Its exploitation must profit in the first place the Chadian people,” said prime minister Pascal Yoadimnadji. On Monday the Chadian government said it would extend the deadline until the end of April, after the US State Department offered to mediate Chad’s claim to oil revenues frozen by the World Bank. Analysts have been warning for months that the worsening mob rule and violence spilling over from Darfur into eastern Chad, and an escalating proxy-war between Sudan-backed insurgents and Deby loyalists, threatens to produce a new humanitarian crisis, as well as cutting off much-needed supplies to the quarter million Chadians and Sudanese already displaced by fighting. Currently the AU has 7,000 troops in Darfur - an arid and barren landlocked region larger in size than France - which analysts say have failed to stop the violence. The UN estimates more than 200,000 civilians have already been killed by fighting in the region. Attempts by the UN to establish a force in the area have been blocked by Sudan. In mid-March the Brussels-based conflict analysis NGO International Crisis Group warned that the international strategy for dealing with the Darfur crisis was at a “dead end”, and recommended a UN-led force be sent to Darfur immediately.