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Plight of Sudanese Refugees in Chad Worsens; Reports of Rape in Darfur

New York, NY

Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children staff on a mission in Chad say that the situation for Sudanese refugees in the country is worsening by the day, with many completely lacking food, water and shelter. The United Nations Population Fund accompanied the Women's Commission on the visit.

"International agencies that are poised to respond are facing a virtual blockade due to lack of resources on the ground," says Sandra Krause, Women's Commission director of Reproductive Health. "The situation is disastrous."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for example, lacks the necessary fuel and vehicles to transport refugees from the border town of Tine, Chad, where the refugees have been struggling in the scorching sun without access to food and water, except for what they receive from the generous, but also very poor, local community. Refugees once reluctant to leave the border areas because of their proximity to their homes in Darfur are now desperate for any escape that would lead them to food, water and shelter.

In Tine, the Chadian border town, refugee women pool the resources they collect – firewood, seeds plucked from trees to boil in water – for daily sustenance. To find scarce supplies, refugee women often cross back over the dangerous border to Sudan to collect water and firewood. Women spend their day trekking eight hours to obtain water for themselves and their children. Refugee women and children, while almost always the majority in these situations, comprise an overwhelming majority of the refugee population in Chad.

Refugees are dying as they struggle to cross the closed Sudan border. Fleeing Sudanese hide in wadis – riverbeds – in Darfur until they are ready to risk their lives to cross the border. Those fleeing make up to 5-6 attempts to cross. Each time, the Arab militia, the Janjaweed, kill many young men as they flee.

The Women's Commission heard repeated reports of young women abducted or captured by the Janjaweed in Sudan; their whereabouts and fate are unknown. In a meeting on April 12 in the border town of Adre, refugee men told the Women's Commission that there were so many rapes of women in Darfur, they couldn't estimate the number. They did say, however, that of their group of 80 families who fled to Chad together, every family had at least one female member who was raped. A common pattern they said is for the Janjaweed to abduct women for 3-4 days, repeatedly rape them, and then return them to their village.

It is estimated that about 110,000 Sudanese refugees have managed to cross into Chad. Human Rights Watch says that 750,000 Sudanese are internally displaced within Darfur. Only a few humanitarian assistance agencies have managed to enter the region.

The Women's Commission urges the international community to ensure that resources are on the ground to provide basic relief. It must also press the Sudanese government to put an end to the violence in Darfur and to open the region to more humanitarian relief agencies.