UN envoy seeks $4.3m emergency aid for refugees

The United Nations appealed on Tuesday for US$4.3 million of emergency aid to meet the immediate needs of 95,000 refugees from Sudan's western Darfur province who have fled into eastern Chad. Tom Vraalsen, the UN special humanitarian envoy to Chad, issued the appeal at a press conference in the Chadian capital N'Djamena at the end of a week-long visit to the country, during which he visited the refugees. A UN spokesman present at the briefing told IRIN by telephone that the $4.3 million would cover the immediate needs of the refugees until the end of March. He said $3.0 million of the emergency aid would be earmarked for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to provide food for the refugees. Most of the rest - $817,000, would go the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which has begun setting up camps in eastern Chad. The refugees fled a conflict in Darfur between Sudanese government forces, supported by Arab tribal militias and two rebel movements seeking autonomy for the province. The fighting began in early 2003 and has gradually become more intense. Militiamen riding on horses and camels have staged frequent raids to destroy villages, kill the inhabitants and steal their livestock. The United Nations estimates that 30,000 refugees poured across the border into the remote semi-desert of eastern Chad in December alone. A further 600,000 people are thought to be internally displaced within Darfur. The UN spokesman said Vraalsen told the press conference in N'Djamena that he would continue lobbying the Sudanese government to allow humanitarian organisations access to those who had remained behind in Darfur. Vraalsen launched the appeal for the refugees in Chad as UNHCR announced that its first official camp for Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad would open later this week UNHCR’s spokeman Helene Caux told IRIN that the agency would truck the first 300 refugees into the Farchana camp site, 55 km east of the border town of Adre on Saturday, two days later than originally expected. The Farchana camp is due to eventually house 9,000 people, principally the most vulnerable refugees; women, children and the elderly. UNHCR has also identified the sites for two more refugee camps near the border town of Tine, further to the north. One would cater for 8,000 refugees and the other for 20,000. Since the begininng of January UNHCR and WFP have been providing food and cooking utensils to some 26,000 refugees living along the border. The German aid agency GTZ is digging wells and latrines for the refugees and Medecins Sans Frontiere Holland and Belgium are providing medical care. Caux told IRIN by satellite telephone from Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad, that UNHCR would send a mission on Wednesday to the Adre district to evaluate the refugee situation there.