Urgent funding needed for water, shelter

British aid agency Oxfam says urgent funding is needed to address water shortages being experienced by some 140,000 Chadian internally displaced persons.

"We need more funding to enable us to adequately intervene in the provision of water and sanitation facilities in the IDP camps which are inadequate. The camps are in eastern Chad where it is normally dry and there is a need to drill more boreholes to increase water supply", Michel Anglade, campaign and policy advisor at Oxfam’s West Africa regional office in Dakar told IRIN on Wednesday.

In parts of Chad, aid agencies are only managing to get three litres of water to people a day when the basic minimum ration should be 15 litres, according to Oxfam.

In the last few months the numbers of IDPs in eastern Chad has increased from 50,000 to 140,000 due to the escalation intensity of attacks on village there since 2005. The country is also host to over 200,000 Sudanese refugees who fled the troubled Darfur region of Sudan. CLICK to read an IRIN story about the causes of displacement in Chad

Oxfam is appealing for US$10 million of aid for both Chad and the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan.

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Chad Kingsley Amaning told IRIN that supplies for other basic services like shelter, food and health supplies are also needed.

"We need to increase and consolidate the services in those areas", Amaning said, adding that aid agencies are trying to find secure places to relocate IDPs who have suffered numerous armed attacks while also assuring them some rudimentary shelter ahead of the annual rainy season which usually starts in July.

"Considering the insecurity in Chad, it would not be a surprise for the number of IDPs to increase", the humanitarian coordinator also warned.

John Holmes, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator warned after a recent visit to Chad said locals, who have been hosting Darfur refugees and IDPs, have stretched their natural resources, especially water, to the limit.

"The humanitarian response must be stronger, faster, and more strategic", Holmes told the UN Security Council earlier this month. He said the international community is dragging its feet on funding for humanitarian operations in Chad and is "underestimating" the scale of the crisis there.

Anglade of Oxfam said: "If funds are not forthcoming, it will make intervention for aid agencies in Chad very difficult and the relief interventions there must be scaled up".

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