Worry mounts over security of displaced, refugees

The army and rebels gave conflicting accounts over heavy fighting in eastern Chad over the week-end, while the government expressed regret that humanitarian organisations were withdrawing staff from the conflict zone.

“The government - as well as the international community - needs to address what has become a grave humanitarian and security situation,” Ahmat Allam Mi, the minister of Foreign Affairs, told diplomats and journalists on Friday.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it had relocated its staff from the eastern towns of Bahai, Iriba, and Guereda in the Biltine region to the main humanitarian hub in Abeche, while other workers have been moved to the capital, N’djamena. Some 400 international and local humanitarian staff had been relocated in the past two weeks while 100 more were still waiting to be moved from Guereda, UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said.

However, she said UNHCR was still working to provide internally displaced people with water, food and primary health services.

“We are keeping skeleton teams in areas where 110,000 refugees live in six camps [further south in Ouaddai region],” she said.

Army authorities said on Sunday that they had inflicted heavy losses on the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) around the regional capital of Biltine.

“The enemy has completely retreated,” said an army source, who claimed that 83 rebels had been killed, 126 had been wounded and 16 taken prisoner.

Government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said on Saturday that two rebel leaders, Abakar Tolli and Hassan Bahar, had been seriously wounded and another rebel leader had been arrested.

The rebels, for their part, said they ambushed government troops at Ganatir, 30 kilometers from Biltine, killing 300 and taking 200 other soldiers prisoner. In a statement issued on Saturday they said that only 17 rebels had been killed.

UN agencies warned on Friday of a growing crisis in the region and estimated that the number of internally displaced people, together with refugees from Sudan, now totaled 323,635.

Most lack access to basic health services, said UNHCR. The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the situation could quickly deteriorate further.

“The increasing number has overstretched the capacity of health services and aid agencies and our supply chains are being affected,” WHO said.

Health problems amongst the displaced population include acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and malaria. A growing number of rebels and government troops are being treated for gunshot wounds

UNHCR said it is trying to keep camps running for the next month while training groups of refugees to become self-sufficient as the security situation could deteriorate and make humanitarian access impossible.

Agency officials said that security was deteriorating in camps around Goz Beida and Koukou in Ouaddai region along the border with Sudan.

“Many refugees fear for their lives,” Pagonis said. “Many are being threatened by armed men in military uniform.”

The government blames neighboring Sudan for supporting armed groups that are behind the fighting, a claim the government of Sudan has frequently denied.

Dd/bo/dh/cs