05/11/2004

Numbers Of Sudanese Refugees May Rise as High as 200,000 The number of refugees who have fled to Chad to escape fighting in the Darfur area of western Sudan could be has high as 200,000, nearly double the official estimate of 110,000, Refugees International reports. The sharply higher figure is based on the observations of Refugees International advocates in Chad, as well as informal estimates by the United Nations.  UN officials in Chad told Refugees International that the number of refugees in Chad may be approaching 200,000, as violence and starvation in Darfur continue to drive refugees out. Refugees International strongly urges the UN and aid agencies to revise their figures for Darfur refugees in Chad upwards to 200,000. Current UN planning is based on a figure of 110,000, and with the rainy season looming, failure to pre-position supplies based on the actual figure will leave refugees vulnerable to shortages of food and medicines in the coming months. RI believes that the current working figure of 110,000 has already been exceeded. According to the Chad office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), figures for registered refugees have risen rapidly since the end of March to the present, from 11,418 to over 50,000. Unregistered refugees are currently estimated at 100,000. Finally, according to local authorities from Borku-Emedi-Tibesti (B.E.T. region) in northern Chad and refugee tribal leaders, there are additional pockets of refugee populations that have yet to be counted. These are estimated at 50,000. With the advent of the rainy season, there are fears that many of these refugees will swamp the five inadequately resourced refugee camps that have been established. Indeed, some rains were reported in the southern region last week, and the arrival at established camps of refugees, who had been living with host families or fending for themselves in the harsh environment of eastern Chad, has been increasing recently. The fundamental problem is that the existing budgets of the key UN relief agencies, UNHCR and the World Food Program (WFP), are based on a working figure of 110,000 refugees, and will have to be nearly doubled to reflect the reality of 200,000 refugees. To meet these challenges, UNHCR will establish an additional 5 camps at sites that have already been identified; HCR is also discussing the establishment of an additional 7 camps (to total 17 in eastern Chad), two in the northern region, and 5 in the southern region. The expansion of the refugee population will require a marked increase in the budgets of UNHCR, WFP and implementing NGOs. There are worrying signs, however, of donors not being adequately seized with the urgency of the situation in Chad. UNHCR’s existing budget of $22.5 million is short $7.8 million. WFP’s call for 21,000 metric tons of food is nearly 20% below the mark, with 17,000 tons committed by donors (of which only 8.5 tons are reportedly in Cameroon or Chad). UNHCR implementing partners have also complained of a lack of resources --- both financial and human --- to implement their projects on the ground. The window of opportunity to set things straight is short and decreasing by the day. Once the rainy season begins in full swing, it will be nearly impossible to deliver supplies and services to the camps, as roads will be cut by a complex web of wadis (river beds) all over eastern Chad. The alternative --- air lifting supplies --- will be vastly more expensive and complicated to implement. As one aid worker commented, “It’s better to give $1 million now than $3 million later, to achieve the same results.” According to James Morris, the head of the World Food Program, the agency currently has enough food in Chad to feed 112,000 people but not enough to feed larger numbers. Mr. Morris, who just returned from a survey of humanitarian conditions in Darfur and Chad  told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that in Darfur more than one million people have been displaced from their homes "in the most violent, mean-spirited way possible….Their homes were burned; women were raped."  He said: "I have never in my life seen people so frightened."  Because of the violence and displacement, the crop in the Darfur region has been lost for this year and will not be planted next year, assuming peace returns.  The number of malnourished children in Sudan is rising sharply, Mr. Morris said. In parts of Chad, Mr. Morris said that refugees are living in "tragic" conditions, and he said that the situation was going to become worse because of the rainy season.   Fidele Lumeya and Pierre Habshi just returned from a two-week assessment to eastern Chad.