Chad: Death by Inches, and No One Will Help

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December23, 2006: The UN is trying to move most of the 370,000 refugees in eastern Chad to a safer location. In the past month, some 70 raids by Chad rebels and Sudanese militias have killed at least 300 people. The attacks have hit refugee camps as well as Chad towns and villages. The raiders are looking for loot, as well as chasing the refugees away. The refugees are mostly from Sudan, but include 90,000 Chadians and 48,000 from the Central African Republic. The UN is trying to get some peacekeepers in to deal with the raiders, but so far it's all talk and no action. The Arab and Islamic nations in the UN oppose any action that would result in the Sudanese Arab militias being defeated.

December 20, 2006: So far, about 90,000 refugees in eastern Chad, have fled the increasing violence caused by Chad rebels and Sudanese Arab militias raiding across the border. The Sudanese Arabs raiders seem determined to drive the refugees (mainly black Sudanese farmers, whose land the Sudanese Arab herders coveted) as far away as possible.

December 18, 2006: The rebels have a new strategy, based on raiding the towns of eastern Chad, and wearing down the army, which rushes to the scene of each raid, to regain control of the town. Operations like that today left 15 civilians, 8 soldiers, five Sudanese refugees and nine rebels dead. However, it's difficult to tell the Chad rebels from the Sudanese militia. Both groups tend to wear combat uniforms provided by the Sudanese army.

December 17, 2006: The president met one of the four rebel movements at war with the government. Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim, the leader of the FUC, is considering rejoining the government, mainly because of increasingly bad relationships with the other rebels movements (UDD, RAFD and SCUD). The other rebels blame Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim for the failure of the bold attack on the capital last April.

 

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