An extra appeal of 6.2 million dollars to help dozens of thousands of refugees in Chad: it was made today by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (Unhcr), due to the worsening of the situation in the African country. In the yearly budget of Unhcr for 2007, about 69.3 million dollars have been allocated to 220,000 refugees from Sudanese Darfur, who are now in 12 camps in Eastern Chad, and to another 46,000 Central-African refugees in the south of the country. The appeal is to be used to help another 120,000 refugees from Chad, who fled their villages where brutal fighting is going on between different ethnic groups. Armed men of Arab origin on horses and camels are attacking and setting fire to whole villages inhabited by people of African origin, destroying crops, stealing cattle and killing people. They are mostly groups from Chad, with the involvement of Sudanese janjaweed militiamen. Last November, a series of raids in 50 villages killed over 250 people and caused hundreds of casualties and 250,000 new refugees. In December, in the region of Koukou-Angarana, 30 people died. Unchr must transfer about 20,000 refugees to better-equipped camps, to offer them better protection. A difficult task, given the rising insecurity, even for the humanitarian workers.
