United Nations Special Envoy departs for Chad

(New York, 7 January 2004): Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for Sudan, will arrive in Ndjamena, Chad, today. He goes at the request of Jan Egeland, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. Ambassador Vraalsen will advocate for a resumption of the peace talks on Darfur currently being mediated by Chad in order to reach a ceasefire and allow increased access to the victims of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Sudan. He will also visit the border region of Chad with Sudan that is affected by the conflict in Darfur and advocate for increased emergency relief to the refugees and other people affected.
Ambassador Vraalsen will also meet with United Nations staff, Chadian officials, non-governmental organizations, and donors.

After the recent talks on peace in Darfur failed to renew a ceasefire between the Government of Sudan and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), fighting continues to rage in Western Sudan, causing massive displacement. One million are affected by the conflict, at least 600,000 are internally displaced and 95,000 refugees have arrived in Chad, most of them living in dozens of makeshift camps along a 600 kilometre stretch of remote, insecure borderland between Chad and Sudan frontier. They are subjected to periodic raids by bandits and marauding militias from across the border, and many are in dire need of assistance. In December alone, 30,000 new refugees arrived in Chad and an unknown number of people - most probably much higher - became internally displaced within Sudan.

On his last mission to Sudan in the first two weeks of December 2003, the Special Envoy met with government and Sudan People's Liberation Army representatives and discussed the prospect for an early agreement at the peace talks in Kenya. For Darfur, the Special Envoy aimed at reaching a ceasefire and increasing access by humanitarian agencies to people in need. In his visit to Darfur, Ambassador Vraalsennoted that the humanitarian and security situation since his last visit in September had deteriorated, especially in North and West Darfur.

UNHCR staff in Eastern Chad are now preparing to relocate the refugees and has 2,000 tents in the area. The first of the new inland camps should be ready to begin accepting an initial population of up to 9,000 refugees in about 10 days. UNHCR is working with the non-governmental organizations GTZ, which is digging wells and building latrines and showers, and Médecins sans Frontières, which is in charge of water treatment. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has shipped in 22,000 blankets. UNHCR and its NGO partners are also carrying out an emergency distribution of food and other supplies to some of the most vulnerable refugees still encamped along the insecure border. As of Monday, aid supplies had been provided to 13,250 of the most vulnerable refugees, many of them women and children.