CHAD: Hunger stalks displaced civilians in Eastern Chad

Aid workers say malnourishment and mortality are reaching alarming levels in children among 170,000 displaced civilians in eastern Chad. The cries of children echo other crises in the dry and impoverished Sahel region, where dwindling resources, regional conflicts and government mismanagement have left millions of people at the mercy of foreign aid organisations. In the village of Kou Kou in Habile, eastern Chad, a relief centre is providing some of the most malnourished with food aid. But there is not much to go around. Many children are in a similar state to Mahamat. Mahmat is two years-old, but he has the haunted look of an old man, reminiscent of recent crises in Darfur and in Niger. Aid workers here say malnourishment and mortality has reached alarming levels. "We are facing an emergency here in eastern Chad for the Chadian displaced population. If immediate humanitarian aid assistance is not sent in on a large scale we will face a catastrophe here in eastern Chad," said Johanne Sekkenes, field co-ordinator for French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The Chadians have been forced from their homes by successive overlapping violence -- cross-border raids from Darfur by Arab Janjaweed militias, inter-ethnic clashes between Arab and non-Arab communities and advances by Chadian rebels. Along with tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees also sheltering in this barren terrain, almost half a million people in eastern Chad are reliant on international help to survive. Since last month, the race has been on to get aid into this region before the rains start in the coming weeks, which will make roads impassable. On the orders of France's new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, French military planes have been airlifting in food supplies. Aid groups are rushing to give families plastic sheeting to protect their flimsy straw shelters. But for many, the relief operation is too little, too late. A recent MSF survey among the displaced showed that out of 1,000 children under 5, some 400 were acutely malnourished. A few kilometres away is Koubigou camp, home to 3,000 new arrivals. Hawai Issa rubs one stone against another, crushing grains of millet to make a thin, watery porridge. In the four weeks since Hawai Issa and her nine children arrived at the camp, the porridge is all they have eaten. She says an attack by Janjaweed militias left her family with no clothes and nothing to eat. She had no choice but to move to a camp. "The Janjaweed targetted mainly the young boys with the camels, leaving us with nothing. That was when we decided to leave," she said. United Nations officials in the area say there is a huge shortfall in resources needed to help those in the camps. Camps in eastern Chad are like small cities with 10,000 to 20,000 people living in small huts built of grass, branches and in some cases, plastic sheeting. But there is no infrastructure, little water and almost no food beyond what aid agencies can provide. The rains, when they come, will flood seasonal rivers, cutting off the camps from the outside world. But while this will cut aid supply routes and may bring water-borne diseases, it may also provide a measure of protection against fresh attacks.

ITN Source | July 23, 2007

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