UN to move 9 000 refugees
2004-01-14 12:12
Ndjamena - The United Nations special envoy to Sudan on Tuesday warned that the plight of refugees fleeing western Sudan's battle-torn Darfur region was dire, and defended a UN move to displace them further into neighbouring Chad.
"The situation out there is very serious," said Tom Eric Vraalsen, speaking of the desert borderland separating Chad from Sudan's Darfur region, where a rebellion has been under way since February 2003.
"According to our estimates, there are 600 000 people displaced within the Darfur region and about one million people affected by the conflict," Vraalsen, the special representative for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, told journalists in the Chadian capital Ndjamena.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday it would start to move about nine thousand refugees from Sudan further inside neighbouring Chad.
About 95 000 Sudanese have fled over the Chad border since April last year to escape burning and looting in the western region of Darfur, where rebels are fighting the Khartoum government, according to a UNHCR official.
They are scattered along a 600km stretch of borderland in makeshift camps where they are still vulnerable to attacks, said Kris Janowski.
The UNHCR has built a safer camp in Furchana, 55km inside eastern Chad.
The camp has an initial capacity of two thousand people which will be expanded to up to nine thousand, according to the agency.
No ambiguous movements
Vraalsen said: "Moving the refugees away will ensure that there are no ambiguous movements which lead to confusion between the refugees and rebels along the border."
He said that after visiting the existing refugee camps in Chad, he had decided to launch a three-month emergency operation, which would cost $4.3m.
The UN's World Food Programme also issued an appeal on Tuesday for international aid to help the Sudanese refugees, whom Vraalsen said are suffering from hunger and cold.
At UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, a spokesperson said the agency wanted to begin moving the refugees by truck at the weekend.
In addition, the UNHCR and the Chadian authorities are looking for other suitable sites located at least 50km inland from the border to which they would transfer the remaining refugees.
They have identified two potential areas north of Furchana, with a combined capacity of 28 000 people, Janowski said.
Only 15% of people in need of help are situated in areas that are accessible for humanitarian organisations, which have run into trouble due to the security situation, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The Darfur rebellion was launched by local groups in February 2003 to protest against alleged Sudanese government neglect, and about three thousand people have been killed, according to UN estimates.