24/2/2006
Violence Sends Central Africans Fleeing Across Chad Border

More than 4,000 refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) flooded across the border into southern Chad this month, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, reported this week.  They were fleeing violent attacks by government forces, rebel groups and bandits.

According to the agency, about 200 CAR refugees are arriving each day, most crossing into Bekoninga, a Chadian village of some 600 inhabitants about 500 metres from the CAR border. The total number of CAR refugees in southern Chad is now more than 43,000.

The northern party of the republic is becoming increasingly volatile and refugees report they are being attacked by bandits, government forces who suspect they are supporting rebel groups and rebel groups who raid their villages for food and cattle and recruit young men.

Tomorrow, UNHCR plans to move 300 new arrivals from the border to the Gondje refugee camp, about 12 kilometres north of Gore, southern Chad’s main town. The Gondje refugee camp was opened in December to ease conditions at the overcrowded Amboko camp nearby and shelter some of the 15,000 refugees who arrived in southern Chad during the summer of 2005.

UNHCR and Chadian officials are considering whether to open a third refugee site near Gore to handle the continuing influx of homeless people.

At least 43,000 CAR refugees live in three camps in southern Chad –Yaroungou, Amboko and Gondje. UNHCR is also caring for more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur in 12 UN agency camps in eastern Chad.