NDJAMENA, 29 March 2007 (IRIN) - NDJAMENA, 29 March 2007 (IRIN) - John Holmes, the United Nations' Emergency Relief Coordinator, has warned that the international community is dragging its feet on funding for humanitarian operations in Chad and is "underestimating" the scale of the crisis there.

The former British diplomat said at least 140,000 displaced Chadians and 235,000 Sudanese refugees are now sheltering in the barren eastern deserts of the vast north-central African country, while emergency relief NGOs and UN agencies are struggling to support them because of ongoing fighting and attacks on them

"I am very worried by the situation and the international community... perhaps underestimates its gravity," he told journalists in the capital N'djamena on Wednesday.

"The needs are enormous and get bigger every day," he added, highlighting that donors have so far only paid US $40 million of the $173 million needed to keep food, water and shelter supplied in eastern Chad.

Swiping aside a suggestion that the inter-communal violence happening in eastern Chad, where several Arab and black African groups, possibly backed by janjawid militias from Sudan, have turned on other ethnicities in the region constitutes a genocide, Holmes said there does need to be an end to all fighting before the situation would improve.

"The fundamental problem is insecurity, both for the population and for the humanitarian actors, which is threatening the continuation of the humanitarian effort," he said.

Holmes, who is on a three-country trip to Sudan, Chad and now Central African Republic - his first mission since taking over as ERC - threw his weight behind the need for a political solution.

"The humanitarian effort cannot continue indefinitely - a humanitarian solution is not a solution," he said.

"A political solution is needed to the problem of Darfur before Chad. But also a political solution here between Chad [and Sudan]," he said, adding that the international community is "ready to support" such a process.

Last month, the UN Security Council voted to send a peacekeeping mission to Chad to protect civilians and guard the border until fighting is stopped. The UN mission was almost immediately stalled when Chad's government said it would not accept any military presence on its soil, only civilian police.

After a meeting with Chadian Prime Minister Nouradine Delwa Kassiré Koumakoye, Holmes only said: "The discussions continue with the Chadian government and I hope that they will arrive at a positive result."

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