Rebel raid threatens east Chad aid lifeline -U.N.
Source: Reuters
By Betel Miarom N'DJAMENA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Looters stole valuable aid supplies during a weekend rebel raid on Chad's main eastern city and violence is hampering relief efforts for Chadian and Sudanese refugees, U.N. agencies said on Monday. Abeche, the centre of relief efforts in Chad for refugees from Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region, was briefly occupied at the weekend by rebels fighting to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby. The government said it retook the city on Sunday. During the occupation, local residents ransacked two warehouses belonging to the World Food Programme (WFP) and U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, containing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food and aid supplies, U.N. officials said. "These supplies were meant for the refugees ... it's really shocking the local population has done this," UNHCR spokeswoman Helene Caux told Reuters by phone from Abeche. She and WFP officials said this and the insecurity around Abeche would slow humanitarian operations in eastern Chad, where UNHCR runs 12 camps and other sites for 218,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur and some 90,000 internally displaced Chadians. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and WFP Executive Director James Morris urged all sides to honour humanitarian principles so the flow of relief in east Chad could get through to those who relied on international help. "The loss of our main stockpiles for the eastern region and the restrictions on our staff because of continuing insecurity are jeopardising that fragile lifeline," Guterres said in a statement released from Geneva." Initial reports from WFP indicated 483 tonnes of food valued at about $500,000 had been looted from its warehouse in central Abeche. Another WFP warehouse on the outskirts was untouched. UNHCR estimated that about 80 percent of the supplies at its warehouse had been looted. It had contained $1.3 million worth of aid items ranging from blankets, tents and plastic sheeting to stoves, kitchen sets, medical supplies, communications gear, and water purification and storage equipment.Caux said that despite the looting of the warehouses, the remote refugee camps located along a 600-km (375-mile) stretch of eastern Chad near the Sudanese border had sufficient supplies to manage for the time being. "The situation in the camps is quiet," she said. Flights in and out of Abeche, which were suspended at the weekend, were resumed on Monday, but road travel north or south out of the city was not possible because of the insecurity. (Additional reporting by Alistair Thomson)
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