3000 homeless after fire breaks out in Chad refugee camp

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A fire broke out in a refugee camp in eastern Chad Friday, April 11, leaving 3,000 people homeless and injuring 10, according to the United Nations (UN) refugee agency United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugees have been living in the camp as a result of the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The fire started in the Goz Amer camp triggered by a cooking fire that had gone unwatched. The fire moved quickly through the camp due to high winds. Many of the refugees lost all of their belongings and food rations in the blaze. After receiving tents from the UNHCR in 2004, many of the refugees built traditional dwellings out of sticks and mud, and these shelters burned rapidly in the fire.

In a UNHCR press release, Emmanuel Uwurukundo, acting UNHCR head in Koukou-Angarana said: "Everybody around, refugees and all our partners alike, rushed to the spot and tried to extinguish the fire with whatever they had: clothes, extinguishers and water. The teamwork was outstanding."

In Geneva the UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres commented on the situation: "The refugees have already suffered so much tragedy and now face yet another trauma. I am deeply relieved that there was no loss of life in this devastating fire. We will do everything we can to help and to get shelter and food supplies to them as quickly as possible."

Families affected by the fire were housed at three area schools, and the UNHCR announced on Friday that it planned to deliver aid supplies including sleeping mats, blankets and kitchen sets. The World Food Programme was also asked by the UNHCR for an extra monthly food ration to be delivered to the families whose homes were destroyed in the blaze.

The Goz Amer camp houses about 20,500 refugees, and is located approximately 70 kilometers from the Sudanese border. Goz Amer is one of 12 UNHCR-run camps along the Chad-Sudan which all told contain over 240,000 refugees from Darfur.

Chad and Sudan signed a peace agreement on March 13 in an attempt to end a five-year conflict, and the leaders of both countries agreed not to back rebel groups that are active near their borders.

Approximately 2.2 million people from the Darfur region have left their homes since the beginning of the violence in 2003. The UN puts the number of deaths due to the Darfur conflict at over 200,000, and the Sudanese government has said that only 9,000 have died.

Please pray for God to intervene with His hand of encouragement and blessing on behalf of the refugees in Goz Amer, and all the other camps in eastern Chad and western Sudan.

Chad: High Civilian Casualties in Rebel-Govt Crossfire

Posted to the web 3 April 2008

Ndjamena (IRIN): Fighting in recent years in eastern Chad between the government and rebels has usually taken place away from civilian populations, but in the latest battle on 1 April more than 50 civilians were killed and injured.

"One was a little girl who picked up an unexploded ordinance which then exploded in her face," Jan Peter Stellema, head of mission in Chad for the non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told IRIN.

The fighting, which took place in Adé near the border with Sudan, left seven civilians dead and 47 wounded, he said.

Medical workers from MSF and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) treated the injured civilians on the spot in Adé expect for the nine most serious cases which were transferred to facilities at the regional capital Goz Beida.

Stellema said MSF is "pleased that access had been granted to treat the civilians", but he also expressed concern that Adé's 1,000 inhabitants and the 10,000 displaced Chadians living alongside them remain vulnerable to attack and that they have been neglected by international aid agencies.

"Adé has one of the most underserved populations in eastern Chad. The UN has not gone there because of security concerns nor are other humanitarian groups present."

Only MSF and the ICRC have projects in the area, Stellema said. "MSF is providing health care but people there need is so much more."

Representatives at ICRC expressed concern that an escalation of the fighting would further hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance adding that the high number of civilian causalities at Adé was a worrying development.

"The type and setting of past armed confrontations in eastern Chad has led to a very limited number of civilian causalities," ICRC deputy head in Chad Nicholai Panke told IRIN by email. "ICRC calls on all parties to [continue to] spare civilians from hostilities."

Hundreds of civilians were killed in Chad's capital N'djamena in early February when rebels temporarily entered the city. Some of the civilian causalities occurred when government forces attacked rebels with helicopter gun ships, observers told IRIN.

In the meantime border tensions are mounting with Sudan reportedly accusing Chad of sending a helicopter into Darfur which bombed the town of Um Kenjub, and firing a missile on the Sudanese military in the area. Chad's government denied the report.

Following the 1 April attack in Adé, 47 injured soldiers were flown by the French army, which is based in Chad, for treatment in hospitals in the eastern town of Abeche and N'djamena, a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous told IRIN.

IRIN contacted a French commander in Chad but he would not comment.

State radio said on 3 April that the army recuperated 45 heavily armed pickups that the rebels had abandoned. There is no information on numbers of rebels injured but ICRC confirmed the Chadian army had taken prisoners.

"ICRC will visit them over the next days to monitor their conditions of detention, as we usually do with all captured opposition fighters in Chad," Panke said.

Original article was posted on AllAfrica.com

CHAD: Foreboding with first rebel attack since February

01 Apr 2008 20:11:31 GMT

Source: IRIN

NDJAMENA, 1 April 2008 (IRIN) - An attack on government troops early on 1 April at the town of Ade in eastern Chad on the border with Sudan is the first serious attempt by the rebels to challenge government forces since February when the rebels got as far as the capital N'djamena before withdrawing.

"The attack today [1 April] could just be a single event but we fear that it is the beginning of a much larger offensive," according to a diplomat in N'djamena who wished to remain anonymous.

Dozens of government troops and many civilians were injured in the fighting which ended around midday, according to a source in Ade. Information on the number of rebel causalities was unavailable, nor was it clear whether the rebels had retreated into Sudan or moved southeast in the direction of the Chadian village of Modoyna which is near the border.

Sources in Ade confirmed that the attackers were part of the rebel National Alliance (NA), which consists of at least three rebel groups headed by Mahamat Nouri a former Chadian general who led the attack on Ndjamena in February. "What the rebels do next is anyone's guess," said the diplomat. "Maybe they just wanted to rattle their sabers and that will be it or maybe this attack was a decoy for larger rebel attacks that could soon take place elsewhere along the border and we are about to witness something big."

"The important thing is that everyone is preparing for any eventuality," he added, referring to the evacuation from N'djamena of diplomats, international aid workers and tens of thousands of civilians during the February rebel offensive.

The Chadian ministry of defense issued a statement saying that Sudan is behind the latest attack and calling the rebels "mercenaries" of Sudan's government. It said that Sudan had violated various accords with Chad notably the one signed on 13 Match in Dakar, in front of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other world leaders. A Sudanese military spokesman told Reuters in Khartoum: "Sudan's armed forces had no hand in what is happening in Chad - this is an internal matter."

Adé sees heavy fighting

April 1, 2008 (AFP): Fighting erupted Tuesday morning in the far eastern part of Chad between rebels and the army, two months after the attack that nearly overthrew President Idriss Deby of Chad Itno in N'Djamena, according to a leader of the rebellion.

"There is fighting to Adé (a border town of Sudan), and they are still going," said Gadaye Ali, the spokesman of the National Alliance (AN), which includes most of the armed groups hostile to President Deby.

"Government forces arrived, they attacked us, we in turn attacked them and we are now occupying Adé," said another rebel official who requested anonymity, on joint satellite telephone from Libreville.

No Chadian army spokespersons were able to be reached at this time.

On February 2 and 3, after crossing the country from their rear bases in Sudan in less than a week, the Chadian rebels had attacked N'Djamena, causing Deby the president to hide out in his palace.

The latter later repulsed the rebels, with the assistance of military support from France.

Darfur: New Attacks in Chad Documented (Human Rights Watch)