After a decade-long slide, Chad is on the verge of collapse and its people face increasing desperation. The chaos in Darfur has brought thousands of refugees across the eastern border, while refugees from the Central African Republic are scrambling in from the south, depleting water and food supplies. And then there is the violence: at least five armed groups from Chad and Sudan are fighting in eastern Chad, burning villages and stealing food and animals along the way. Local families have been forced into exile and into overcrowded camps, where disease and hunger are on the rise. Over 100,000 Chadians are now huddled in large concentrations near Goz Beida with insufficient water and no way to support themselves.

World Concern is leading a public works program to provide wages to displaced families and allow them to keep their food while still paying their other critical expenses. The projects will include hill-side rainwater catchment systems, which will capture rain throughout the rainy season and create small ponds. The ponds will be a source of water for the few remaining animals and also allow thousands of families to cultivate small dry-season crops, reducing their dependence on aid. Even more importantly, the rainwater catchment systems will help to replenish the aquifer and prevent the wells from going dry.

Chad's slow decline over the past decade has gone largely unnoticed by the international community. Now, with the Darfur crisis spilling over its eastern border, refugees from Central African Republic amassing along its southern border and internal corruption eating away at its heart, the country is on the verge of collapse. Nowhere is this more apparent than along the southern section of its border with Sudan, where displaced Chadians who have been chased from their homes and villages have settled in camps in Goz Beida with insufficient water and no way to support themselves.

The displaced have received very little assistance so far. They are living in make-shift grass huts, cooking from the few pots they salvaged from the ashes of their homes. Many struggle to collect small amounts of filthy water - frequently walking more than eight hours a day to do so -- and outbreaks of diarrhea and hepatitis are on the rise. At the same time, the water table is dropping at an alarming rate.

World Concern is preparing to enter Chad with a disaster response team which will help create income-generating public works projects in the region. The rainwater catchment projects will provide clean water, food and income to struggling families.

Normally a trading post of 5,000 people, Goz Beida has quickly grown to about 50,000. Most of the displaced families arrived in October and November, after having been attacked and chased from two or three different places before arriving in Goz Beida. During the first attacks, their houses were burned, their harvest of grain destroyed, and all of their cattle stolen along with many of their sheep and goats. Most people sold the rest of their animals before they could be stolen. This is the money they have been living on, and it is now running out.

"The displaced women have been through a tremendous ordeal," said World Concern Disaster Response Director Merry Fitzpatrick, who just returned from the region. Most of them spend eight hours a day or more walking long distances to collect water for their families - water that is filthy and causing outbreaks of disease. "Half of the households are women-headed, because in the original attack the men were targeted. And because this is a society that values retribution, the men who weren't killed have joined the militias…so about half of the men are missing."

The women, Fitzpatrick said, "have absolutely nothing and very little opportunity to meet the needs of their families and to keep them alive, and yet they were very dignified. Although they are in a very desperate situation, the people are not self-pitying."

Chad is a land-locked country in the very center of Africa. The northern half of the country is arid desert, sparsely occupied by nomads who live by herding animals. The southern quarter of the country is much greener, settled by farmers. The area of transition from desert to green is called the Sahel. In this region, families depend on a combination of animals and agriculture and are usually settled in very small villages. The land and climate can support only few people spread over large areas. Large concentrations of people are rare because water and plant-life is so scarce.

Not only is the Sahel a critical transition zone for climate, but also for religion and ethnicity. Northern Africa is Arabic and dominated by Islam, while Sub-Saharan Africa is typically a mixture of Christianity and traditional animism. Over the past century, the Saharan Desert has been pushing south bringing these two groups into competition for the same resources. This rising tension is further exacerbated by the increased global tension between the Muslim and Christian worlds. The Sahel has become a very fragile, vulnerable place, a microcosm of the world in general.

Although the harvest of grain across the Sahel was better than usual this year and the markets are full of food, the displaced families around Goz Beida lost their harvest and are having a difficult time buying enough grain to feed their families. Those who do receive food aid are forced to sell half to two-thirds of their food aid to pay for other expenses, such as replacing kitchen equipment or buying salt. As more families sell the grain they receive as food aid, the price of grain in the market drops, requiring them to sell even more grain to receive the same amount of money, and so the downward cycle goes.

In early February, World Concern led an assessment to eastern Chad Based on that assessment, we believe the situation will become a grave crisis in June if people do receive immediate assistance. We are proposing to carry out a public works program that will provide wages to the displaced families and allow them to keep their food while still paying their other critical expenses. The works themselves will be primarily hillside rainwater catchment systems, which will capture rain throughout the rainy season and create small ponds. The ponds will be a source of water for the few remaining animals and also allow thousands of families to cultivate small dry-season crops, reducing their dependence on aid. Even more importantly, the rainwater catchment systems will help to replenish the aquifer and prevent the wells from going dry.

To help the people of Chad, World Concern is heading up an alliance of Christian professionals who are experienced working in conflict and dealing with food security issues. The alliance includes World Concern, Food For the Hungry, MAP, Medical Teams International, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee and World Relief. The same organizations are now working successfully in Darfur, a partnership which gives us access to a larger pool of professionals and private funding.