The
international relief effort to provide assistance to Sudanese
refugees in eastern Chad has received an important contribution
with the deployment in the area of 14 Chad Red Cross trucks.
Twenty of these trucks landed in N’Djamena last month.
They were donated by the Norwegian Red Cross in response to
the international appeal for 2.3 million Swiss francs (US$1.8
million) launched by the International Federation in December
2003.
Currently based in Abeche, the nerve centre of the operation,
14 Chad Red Cross trucks got to work last week carrying 45 tonnes
of drilling equipment for Norwegian Church Aid, one of 13 international
partners in the vast operation.
The delivery of the drilling equipment reaped almost immediate
benefits, with the discovery of a usable water source in Touloum
refugee camp a few days later. Until now, the 5,000 refugees
who currently live there have relied on water being trucked
into the camp.
On their way back from Touloum, the trucks began operations
in earnest by transferring 260 refugees to another UNHCR camp,
100 kilometres further south, in Kounoungo.
On Saturday 28th February, six-year-old Fatme became the first
refugee to board one of these ex-Norwegian army vehicles, which
have begun a new life of humanitarian work.
Accompanied throughout the exhausting four-hour trip by Chad
Red Cross volunteers, who provide a human face to relief efforts,
Fatme received dates, peanuts and water on her arrival, while
waiting in a shaded area to go through the lengthy but necessary
process of medical screening, registration and distribution
of basic non-food aid.
Fatme came to Chad last January with her mother, aunt and seven
underage siblings, when armed horsemen burned down her home
town in the western Sudanese province of Darfur, killing her
father and two uncles.
Her family walked for five days under cover of night to reach
safety on the other side of the border, in the north-eastern
Chadian town of Tine. After one month of living in a makeshift
shelter of branches and salvaged junk, the whole family took
to the road once more to seek aid from the international community
at the camp in Touloum.
Today, Fatme is being cared for in one of six UNHCR camps which
will eventually be set up to accommodate the refugees.
Fatme is just one of an estimated 110,000 Sudanese, mainly women
and children, who have sought refuge in Chad. They are scattered
along the arid 500 kilometres of border between the two countries.
More are crossing every day, fleeing the violent clashes which
erupted in Darfur last year.
Up to now, levels of malnutrition and disease have remained
thankfully low, as the local population has managed to meet
some of the newcomers’ basic needs. But aid agencies say
the number of cases have risen in recent weeks, highlighting
the urgency of organising distributions of food and non-food
aid, as well as adequate water and sanitation facilities.
So far, less than 10,000 refugees have settled in the three
operational camps in Touloum, Kounoungo and Farchana, where
they have proper access to humanitarian assistance.
The UNHCR intends to assist up to 45000 in camps, depending
on their success in finding sufficient water sources for each
of them. This has proved the main difficulty in the operation
so far: despite an extensive survey of the hydrographical situation,
only one in three drillings in the area has produced a usable
supply.
In the south of the emergency zone, where refugees have managed
to bring with them much of their livestock, the water problem
is particularly acute, limiting the number of people who can
be accommodated in each camp.
In northern parts, the harsher terrain has not been able to
support the few animals the refugees have brought with them.
Dozens of rotting carcasses lie all around settlements, fouling
the air. But the loss of these prized possessions is of only
limited concern to the refugees.
“It is more important to save our children than our cattle,”
one of the few men, Osman Adam Abdallah, tells aid workers.
The rainy season hangs over the operation like a sword of Damocles.
The torrential rains which will hit the region from June to
August, swelling rivers and cutting the dirt roads, will considerably
complicate relief efforts.
Even short distances will be nearly impossible to travel for
fully-loaded conventional trucks, while some areas will be effectively
cut off from the rest of the country for three months.
While the UNHCR is actively pre-positioning supplies for the
camps in anticipation, it is clear that many refugees will have
to be assisted outside, along the border. For this delicate
mission, many will be counting on the Chad Red Cross’s
six-wheel drive trucks, which have already proved their off-road
capacity in the Southern African relief operation over the past
two years.
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The
vast majority of the 110,000 Sudanese to have sought refuge
in Chad are women and children (p11310)
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A
total of 20 Norwegian all-terrain trucks have been donated
as part of the Federation operation. They will make an
enormous difference to the international aid effort in
eastern Chad (p11314)
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A
Chad Red Cross volunteer welcomes refugees at Kounoungo
refugee camp. The refugees are kept in a shaded area while
the process of health checks, registration and distribution
of aid is carried out (p11318)
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A
total of six camps are envisaged for the Sudanese refugees,
of which three already exist. Currently most of them are
scattered over 500 km of border area (p11321)
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One
of trucks' first tasks upon arriving in the east was to
transport refugees to the camps, where they can receive
better care (p11315)
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