Registration of refugees underway

The registration of Chadian refugees in Cameroon began earlier this week in Ngaoundere in the Cameroon province of Adamaoua, AFP reported on Wednesday, citing local officials in Yaounde. Close to 8,000 of the estimated 20,000 refugees, it said, will be issued identity cards that will cost each person 6,000 francs cfa. The news agency, citing officials in the province situated some 1,000 km north of the capital, said "few Chadians" had come forward to receive the cards. A UNHCR spokesman told IRIN on Friday that it had been difficult to identify the number of Chadian refugees in Cameroon because many lived in towns or work as farmhands. There are just 3,000 refugees in the Tapare camp in the northern district of Garoua, he said. Rough estimates give the number of Chadian refugees in the country as 50,000 but the figure being used for repatriation planning is 20,000. UNHCR said that the identity card process - basically a head count of refugees - was in preparation for the repatriation operation, due in October. "The condition (in Chad) is conducive," the source said. Guerrilla group renounces war A Chadian anti-government group, the Alliance pour la Resistance nationale (ANR), has renounced armed struggle because, its leader says, there is now a democratic process in the country, Gabon's Africa No. 1 radio reported on Wednesday. ANR leader Souleymane Garfa said his group would take part in the democratic political process. Its Renunciation of the armed struggle was marked in a ceremony on Tuesday when 100 ANR guerrillas surrendered to the government. Garfa, a former army colonel, told Africa No.1 that ANR fighters would "be placed at the disposal of the competent authorities" for their reintegration into the Chadian army.