UNHCR identifies site for second refugee camp

The UN refugeee agency UNHCR said on Monday it had identified a site for a second refugee camp in eastern Chad to accommodate some of the 95,000 refugees who have flooded into the remote border area to escape fighting in the Darfur province of neighbouring Sudan. Helene Caux, the UNHCR spokesman for eastern Chad, said on Monday that UNHCR had agreed with the Chadian government to establish a new camp for 8,000 people at Koloungo, 70 km inside the Chadian border. UNHCR announced last week that it would establish a first camp for 9,000 refugees at Farchana, 55 km east of the border town of Adre. This had been due to open on Thursday, but Caux said it was taking longer than expected to dig wells and latrines and install showers at the site, so its opening would be delayed by about a week. “The first movement [of refugees] will be next week”, she told IRIN by satellite telephone from Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad, about 150 km from the Sudanese border. Caux said UNHCR was currently “in negotiations” with the Chadian authorities about opening a third much larger refugee camp for between 15,000 and 20,000 at Saranh, not far from Koloungo. Caux said that while the refugees had little shelter from the burning sun and hot dry wind by day or from near freezing temperatures at night, they were not yet on the brink of starvation. “It is not a famine situation,” the UNHCR spokeswoman said, although she acknowledged that conditions were difficult. Malnutrition, respiration problems and eye infections among children were common, she added. The UN World Food Programme is still waiting for donors to respond to its appeal for US $13 million to help deliver 13,000 tonnes of food to the Sudanese refugees in Chad this year. They began trickling across the border in early 2003 as fighting flared up between Sudanese governmenent forces backed by tribal militias and two rebel movements seeking autonomy for Darfur. The United Nations reckons that about 600,000 people have been internally displaced within Darfur as a result of the fighting. This often results in entire villages being burned and looted, according to the accounts of survivors. All too often, the raiding parties kill anybody they find and drive off with their livestock. In December alone, UNHCR estimates that 30,000 Sudanese made homeless by the fighting crossed the 600km-long border into the semi-desert region of eastern Chad. There they have foraged to survive and relied on the generosity of local people, many of whom belong to the same ethnic groups. The Djobal, Erangha and Zaghawa tribes live on both sides of the border. Chadian President Idriss Deby is a Zaghawa. Since 2 January, UNHCR and WFP have been distributing food, mats, soaps, kitchen sets and other household items to thousands of refugees. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) last week flew in 22,000 blankets. A few other other relief organisations, including the German aid agency GTZ and the Dutch and Belgian sections of Medecins Sans Frontieres, have also established a presence in the region.