More violence in east

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has released testimony of attacks on unarmed villagers that it says have uprooted 63,000 people this year, while the government has confirmed inter-communal violence is on the rise in the same region.

Armed groups have frequently attacked villages along the Chad-Sudan border, UNHCR said. On Thursday, "more than 200 people" may have been killed by armed men on horseback that raided villages in the Kerfi area, 40 km south of the aid hub Goz Beida, the refugee agency said.

"Some of the attackers were in trees and were shooting at the inhabitants from there," UNHCR quoted a village chief from Djorlo as saying.

The villages of Bandicao, Badia, Newea, Kerfi, Agourtoulou, Abougsoul, Tamadjour and Loubitegue have also been attacked, UNHCR said.

One thousand people from those villages have arrived in Koukou and in a nearby camp for internally displaced Chadians at Habile. UNHCR said most of the wounded from the attacks are still in their villages because they have no transportation to bring them over the rutted tracks to health centres in Kerfi village and Goz Beida.

Eastern Chad has become increasingly violent in the past year. In addition to the janjawid attacks, the region hosts at least four rebel groups which have fought the Chadian and Sudanese armies on Chadian territory, threatening civilians and forcing UNHCR to move its refugee camps for Sudanese refugees away from the border.

Inter-communal violence surges

Earlier this week, inter-communal violence between Arabs and members of the Kibets, a non-Arabic tribe, erupted in the Salamat region, 600 km southeast of the capital, N'djamena, and south of the town of Ouaddai.

On or around 4 November, some 139 civilians and fighters were killed in a first bout of fighting, and a further 50 people subsequently, according to government officials who have visited the region and were contacted by IRIN.

"The Arabs in the neighbouring cantons organised themselves and attacked Kibets villages," said Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, Chadian Territorial Administration minister.

Inter-communal conflicts are common in Chad, usually between agriculturalists and animal breeders fighting over land.

"These attacks have made many victims from both communities," Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor, a government spokesperson, said in a communique that also linked the inter-communal violence with the other attacks by janjawid militias from Sudan.

"The tools of war have unfortunately been used to kill and this isolated region has already been submitted to aggression by mercenaries from Sudan. These inter-communal spats are multiplying in all the regions along the border with Sudan, and they have pitched the same communities against each other as in Darfur," Doumgor's communique said.

History of violence

The Chadian government has requested that the UN pay more attention to the spill-over of violence from Darfur into Chad, and specifically requested that UN peacekeepers be deployed in Chad to police the border.

Senior UN officials, including Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have warned that if eastern Chad is destabilised, it risks creating a spiral of violence that could draw in Darfur and the dangerous northern areas of Central African Republic.

However, a Chadian sociologist in N'djamena warned against reading too much into the inter-communal violence, pointing out that the ethnically diverse region is frequently the scene of violent uprisings.

"The region around Salamat is the most mixed region in Chad. There are black Africans, Arabs, Libyans, Central Africans, and the Sera Kaba [ethnic group]. Sudanese are the majority," he said.

"The political issue is at the level of the sultan and also people with mixed-race, especially the Arabs who have been marginalised. Another cause is that the political issue is dominated by leaders installed in the high places. In Salamat, cohabitation is just a facade and the people do not have confidence [in each other]," he said.

Zakaria Fadoul Khitir, vice-rector of the University of N'djamena, told IRIN that local issues, from the payment of dowries, marriage, succession, policies over polygamy, inheritances, funeral arrangements for women, allegations of witchcraft, caste discrimination, and access to water points and pasturage often lead to violence in Chad.

"The causes vary between different communities," he said.

dd/nr/cs