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Unrest threatens food aid
04/02/2008 18:16 - (SA)
Dakar - Unrest in Chad risks disrupting food aid to hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians, the UN food agency warned on Monday.
"Insecurity in Chad may disrupt the dispatch and arrival of food assistance for more than 400 000 Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians unless the situation swiftly stabilises," the World Food Programme (WFP) said.
There are some 235& 000 refugees from Sudan and 46 000 from the Central African Republic as well as 150 000 internally displaced Chadians in camps in Chad, it said in a statement received in Senegal's capital Dakar.
Rebels over the weekend stormed the Chadian capital Ndjamena in a bid to oust President Idriss Deby. Despite government claims that the rebels were repulsed, thousands of refugees are said to be fleeing Ndjamena for Cameroon.
Some WFP staff have been airlifted out of Ndjamena, but more than 200 remain to monitor food operations in the east of Chad, which borders on Sudan's Darfur region, although their movement has been restricted by the instability.
- AFP
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