UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL ENVOY DEPARTS FOR CHAD

NEW YORK, 7 January (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) -- Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for the Sudan, will arrive in Ndjamena, Chad, today.  He goes at the request of Jan Egeland, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator.  Mr. 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 the Sudan.  He will also visit the border region of Chad with the Sudan that is affected by the conflict in Darfur and advocate for increased emergency relief to the refugees and other people affected.

Mr. 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 the 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 the 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 the Sudan.

On his last mission to the 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, Mr. Vraalsen noted that the humanitarian and security situation since his last visit in September had deteriorated, especially in north and west Darfur.

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees staff in eastern Chad are now preparing to relocate the refugees and have 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.  The 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.  The UNHCR and its non-governmental organization 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.

For further information, please call: Stephanie Bunker, OCHA New York, tel.: (917) 367-5126, mobile: (917) 892-1679; or Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel.: 41 22 917 2653, mobile: 41(0) 79 472 4570.

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