400,000 refugees are waiting for protection and assistance – Germany must not block EU peace-keeping force for Chad

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) pointed on Monday to the dramatic situation of the more than 400,000 refugees in eastern Chad. 235 refugees from neighbouring Darfur and 172,000 displaced persons urgently need protection and more humanitarian aid, said the human rights organisation. The GfbV appealed to the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, not to block a planned interim peace-keeping force from the European Union (EU). It is above all from Germany that scepticism is to be heard concerning the proposed EU peace-keeping force consisting of police and military personnel, on the stationing of which a decision will most likely be taken in July already.

The proposed force is to provide protection until the arrival of a UN force for the refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), who are increasingly being targeted for attacks. On the pattern of the "Operation Artemis”, in which in the summer of 2003 European soldiers prevented an escalation of violence in the east of the Congo, the Chad mission is planned to prevent civilians from being attacked by Sudanese Janjaweed and their allies and to prevent the escalation of violence between the individual ethnic groups. Arab and African groups accuse each other of violent attacks.

The steady increase in violence has caused the number of IDPs in the east of Chad to reach 140,000 since June 2006. "In the light of the pressure on the German army from other operations abroad there is no question of sending German military or police personnel to Chad”, said the GfbV Africa correspondent, Ulrich Delius. "However if measures for the safety of the refugees are not rapidly improved, there is a serious threat not only that thousands of refugees will die, but that Chad will drift further into chaos and anarchy.” For fear of violence 40,000 Darfur refugees have already fled into the Central African Republic. But they are not safe there either.

"The Chad security forces are not protecting the refugees, they are failing everywhere”, criticised Delius. The lack of protection is seen by the humanitarian aid workers as one of the greatest problems in coping with the many groups of refugees. The humanitarian aid is also insufficient and frequently badly coordinated. The situation of the IDPs is particularly precarious. In the Habile camp for example there are only 100 toilets for 25,000 people. In the hospital at Goz Beida two doctors have to care for 100,000 IDPs. In other camps there is no medical provision at all. Every fifth IDP is under-nourished, in the case of children under the age of five it is almost every second child.

The GfbV pointed out that Germany was also a signatory to the millennium declaration in September 2005 on the protection of the civilian population in the face of expulsion and the most serious violations of human rights. "The Chad mission is a test case, which will show whether deeds will follow the fine words,” said Delius.