Refugees threaten new exodus to Chad

AROUND 30,000 Sudanese victims of fresh attacks by Arab militia inside Darfur are threatening to cross into Chad unless the international community acts to protect them.

This week, 30,000 Sudanese met Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the head of UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) operations for Sudan at Masteri in western Darfur. They reported a spate of recent rapes, killings and attacks by militiamen.

The refugees demanded UN peacekeepers or other credible measures to make them feel secure in Sudan.

“If they don’t get international security guarantees, they said, they will all cross to Chad as soon as the rain-swollen river that marks the border with Sudan dries up,” Spokesman Ron Redmond said.

The Sudanese authorities are conducting propaganda campaigns on the radio and through village chiefs to prevent Darfuris from leaving their homeland, the UNHCR added.

The Commission hopes to avoid at all costs an influx of 30,000 refugees into one area, because, it said, that would strain aid workers’ ability to feed and care for refugees in its nine camps in eastern Chad.

“We have been worried all along that some more of the estimated 1.2 million people who are internally displaced in Darfur could move toward Chad if they don’t get the protection and assistance that they need inside Darfur,” Mr Redmond added.

Some 7,345 Darfuris have been registered in Chad so far this month, and 18,000 remain camped along the border, the UNHCR said.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 672 cases of hepatitis and 21 deaths have been reported in camps in Chad over the past month.

The World Food Programme said it was seeking a further $40 million (€32.5 million) from donors to buy extra food for 45,000 Darfuri children and mothers in Chad and 10,000 Chadians whose stocks had been depleted.

“This is an effort to try to reverse the tide of malnutrition,” a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said that his country was confident it will prove to the UN Security Council it has made progress to protect the internally displaced.

Under a July 30 Security Council resolution, Sudan was given a month to prove it was making progress toward disarming the marauding Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, and improve security in the remote western region, or face else possible sanctions.

UN envoy Jan Pronk will report on progress in Darfur to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on August 30 after senior UN officials visit the area next week.

Under the UN plan, the International Organisation of Migration has been negotiating an accord with Sudan on the safe return of displaced villagers.

The UN estimates that up to 50,000 people have died in Darfur since two rebel groups took up arms there last year. The Arab government denies encouraging the Janjaweed in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the African population.