GOUROUKOUN, 30 March 2007 (IRIN) - GOUROUKOUN, 30 March 2007 (IRIN) - Some 140,000 Chadians have fled their homes to squat in squalid settlements in the deserts of eastern Chad since attacks on their villages started in 2005.

Human rights groups and the UN blame a complex and barely understood inter-ethnic war as well as attacks from the Sudanese janjawid militia for the violence. Chad's government has refused a UN peacekeeping force which was proposed to provide protection for civilians and to guard the border.

"We have been chased away from our homes. We have lost everything. Our children and our husbands were killed, we have been left with nothing but orphans in our arms. Our houses were burned.

We walked 150 km to get here but still have the same problems we fled - like how are we going to drink and how can we have security?

On this site where we live now for months we have no shelter, no money, nothing to eat. We sleep on the ground. To get something to eat we had to sell the plastic and sticks we were given to build a shelter last year. We have to walk to the [refugee camp] at Goz Beida to get water or go to other refugee camps.

When we go out to get firewood, the janjawid often attack us, killing and raping as they want. One woman went out and she was found a few days later with her throat cut. Before that, some men were killed when they were out working in a field.

I know five other women have been raped and tortured by the janjawid recently.

We left everything in our villages. All the food was left and our animals have died long ago. Maybe tomorrow it will be our turn."

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