Chad: Angriff im Osten vertreiben 5000; 37 MSF Mitarbeiter vermisst

MSF Is Concerned About the Fate of 5,000 Displaced Persons and 37 of its Staff, Who Have Disappeared in an Area Gripped by Intensifying Violence Expanding Throughout the Region

Paris, November 17, 2006. Two days ago, Koloye, in eastern Chad and close to the Darfur border, was attacked, looted and emptied of its inhabitants. The 5,000 displaced Chadians gathered in Koloye have disappeared. MSF also has no news of 37 of its employees. This situation comes in the midst ofseveral weeks of widening violence against the populations that is expanding throughout the region.

A Médecins Sans Frontières team went to Koloye yesterday morning and found only two people who had returned in an effort to collect a few items. They reported that the assailants had threatened them, forcing the populations to flee again, and ordered them not to return.

“The area around Koloye is completely deserted,” reports Filipe Ribeiro, MSF’s head of mission. “The villages 20-30 kilometers before Koloye are partially burned and abandoned. Ten kilometers before Koloye, there are visible signs of the displaced persons’ flight. There is nothing left except shoes and gourds abandoned at the side of the road. In Koloye, the dwellings at the entrance to the village have been burned. MSF’s clinic was looted and we found bloody compresses at the clinic, a clear sign that people were wounded in the confrontation. The pharmacy was destroyed. The tents and water tanks have disappeared or were destroyed. The drugs and supplies are gone.”

We currently have no news about this population or about the members of our Chadian team, who were managing the drinking water operations that we had set up. We are particularly concerned about them because of the high level of insecurity in the area, which is experiencing increasing attacks and looting of villages. In April, the displaced persons in Koloye had abandoned their villages, located along the frontier, fleeing incursions by armed men. MSF provided them medical assistance, drinking water and survival supplies.

In this context of increasing violence, it is critical that aid actors like MSF be able to reach affected populations quickly.

MSF has provided medical and material aid to displaced Chadians in the eastern part of the country since December 2005. In addition to the 5,000 people who were in Koloye, nearly 25,000 displaced Chadians are still gathered in Dogdoré, where MSF continues to provide medical care, drinking water and survival supplies. Mobile clinics have also been organized for the Borota displaced persons.

Other MSF teams are also working in Adré and the Darfur refugee camps in Farchana and Breidjing, as well as further north, in Iriba, Iridimi and Touloum. MSF is also working in the southern part of the country, in Goré, as well as in the refugee camps housing persons from the Central African Republic.

Quelle: www.reliefweb.int