KHARTOUM(RAHNUMA): As waves of traumatized refugees flee intensifying violence in Sudan’s North Darfur, those reaching safety in eastern Chad are finding almost no international humanitarian assistance waiting for them.
With funding for the crisis plummeting, newly arrived families depend almost entirely on meager donations from earlier refugees and the strained generosity of local Chadian communities.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has received only 38 percent of the $246 million it says it needs to respond to the Sudanese refugee emergency in Chad this year.
The funding crisis has forced painful tradeoffs. The World Food Programme resumed limited distributions on Saturday, but only for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and children under two.
Most general food aid has been redirected to established camps farther inland, a deliberate policy to encourage refugees to leave the volatile border zone.
“There are no tents, no durable shelters — just plastic sheeting to block the sun,” said Magatte Guisse, UNHCR’s representative in Chad.
Relocations to better-equipped inland camps have slowed dramatically because there is not enough money to drill boreholes, build latrines, or provide adequate shelter there either.
