CHAD: AID AGENCIES DISTRIBUTE EMERGENCY SUPPLIES OF FOOD AND SHELTER TO THOUSANDS OF REFUGEES FROM SUDAN'S DARFUR REGION

Record ID: 646991

  • Title: CHAD: AID AGENCIES DISTRIBUTE EMERGENCY SUPPLIES OF FOOD AND SHELTER TO THOUSANDS OF REFUGEES FROM SUDAN'S DARFUR REGION
  • Date: 31st July 2004
  • Summary: (W8) BREDJING, CHAD (JULY 29, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. SLV WOMEN WAITING FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE OF BREDJING CAMP; MEN WAITING FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTION 0.18 2. SLV DISTRIBUTION POINT; SCU BAGS OF FOOD 0.25 3. SLV WOMEN REFUGEES CARRYING BAGS ON HEAD; MV REFUGEES SHARING RATIONS AMONGST FAMILY MEMBERS; SC MAN SCOOPING BEANS WITH MUG; SCU BEANS 0.54 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRISTOPH HAMM, FIELD OFFICE HEAD FOR UNHCR, ADRE REGION, SAYING: "So the first priority for us was to get food to them, and basic shelter materials, that's plastic sheeting and blankets." 1.04 5. SLV WOMEN CARRYING BLANKETS AND PLASTIC SHEETING; SCU BABY PLAYS ON BLANKET 1.14 6. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) YOUSSOUF ANNOUR, REFUGEE, SAYING: "I'm very happy to get this food ration today and also the blankets that we've received, I'm very happy about all that." 1.21 7. SLV PERMANENT CAMP 1.29 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 15th August 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BREDJING, CHAD
  • Country: Chad
  • Reuters ID: LVA83LUJ2KHZHUB2MR51NCF0GXPB
  • Story Text: Aid agencies distribute emergency supplies of food
    and shelter to thousands of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region.

    Aid groups gave out emergency supplies of food,
    plastic sheeting and blankets on Thursday (July 29, 2004) to
    thousands of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region stuck
    outside an already overcrowded camp in eastern Chad.

    It was the first time most of the refugees had received
    aid since arriving at Bredjing camp over the past few
    weeks. Unlike the camp's official population, the recent
    arrivals had not been registered and so had not been
    entitled to aid.

    Aid workers at the camp, spread over sloping landscape
    some 50 km from the Sudanese border, said they were
    relieved to have begun supplying all the refugees but were
    worried poor sanitary conditions could lead to an outbreak
    of disease such as cholera.

    Men in long white robes and women wrapped in colourful
    fabrics sat patiently at the centre of Bredjing camp in
    baking heat, waiting for their turn to receive sacks of
    rice, tins of cooking oil and green plastic sheets from the
    charity CARE.

    Djimia Ismail, a refugee from Darfur, said she would
    cook a meal of beans and rice for her five children after
    receiving her supplies. It was the first ration after 15
    days at the camp, she said.

    "I'm very happy to get this food ration today, and also
    the blankets that we've received, I'm very happy about all
    that," said Youssouf Annour, who had recently arrived at
    the camp to escape the fighting in the Darfur region.

    The refugees fled a campaign of killing, looting and
    destruction by Arab Janjaweed militias in a conflict that
    also involves black African rebel groups. The United
    Nations says the violence has created the world's gravest
    humanitarian crisis.

    Having not been supplied with tents, many of the recent
    arrivals have constructed row upon row of basic shelters
    out of little more than tree branches at their unofficial
    site.

    The refugees left Sudan months ago, part of the
    exodus of some 180,000 Darfuris who have fled to Chad but they
    staye
    d close to the border at first.

    With the start of the rainy season about a month ago,
    they have been streaming to Bredjing as local communities
    wanted to cultivate the land they were using.

    The recent arrivals, thought to number about 7,000 on
    top of an official camp population of 27,000, would have
    been helped sooner but a stoning attack on aid workers at
    the camp prompted relief agencies to suspend work for more
    than a week.

    Rain has come to the region, making shelter a
    necessity. "The first priority for us was to get food to
    them and some basic shelter materials," said Christoph
    Hamm, the head of the local field office for the U.N.

    refugee agency UNHCR.

    But Hamm said conditions at the camp, originally meant
    to accommodate 18,000 people, were a big concern. There are
    not enough latrines for the main camp and none for the area
    occupied by the refugees who have arrived in recent weeks,
    he said.

    The International Federation of Red Cross and Red
    Crescent Societies said on Thursday it would set up a camp
    for 20,000 refugees at Treguine nearby. It is hoped the
    camp will take some of the strain off the camps at Bredjing
    and Farchana.



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