Fighting in eastern Chad threatens to cut aid to over 200,000 Chadian and Sudanese refugees, putting thousands of lives at risk, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) warned today.
The UNHCR runs 12 camps near the Chad-Sudan border housing 218,000 refugees from violence in Sudan's neighbouring Darfur region, and there are a further 90,000 Chadians who have been forced from their homes by recent unrest in eastern Chad.
"The humanitarian lifeline there is very, very fragile and we fear that continuing violence in the region could easily sever it," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
Curtailing aid would jeopardise "the lives of thousands of Darfurians and Chadians who have already suffered too much," he said. Earlier on Saturday, Chadian rebels attacked the eastern regional capital of Abeche in their latest strike against President Idriss Deby's rule.
Chad's army said it had withdrawn from the town in order to save civilian lives but that its forces had surrounded insurgents inside Abeche, which is the base for international humanitarian operations in the area. Eastern Chad has seen numerous attacks in recent months, including offensives by anti-Deby rebels Chad says are backed by Sudan.
"I appeal to all sides to bear in mind the enormous humanitarian needs we're already facing in Chad," Guterres said. The UNHCR and other aid agencies were forced to abandon plans on Friday to distribute aid to thousands of Chadians who had taken refuge outside the southeastern town of Goz Beida because of reports of military movements in the area.
Khartoum denies backing the rebels but Chad's government accuses its eastern neighbour of waging a regional war of destabilisation from the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in ethnic and political fighting since 2003.