Chad has accused the international community of abandoning it and leaving it alone to face a flood of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan and an “unprecedented” humanitarian crisis, calling for “massive aid” to address the situation while the country suffers from a financial crisis.
Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo told diplomats and representatives of international organizations on Saturday that “the mobilization of the international community… does not reach the level of mobilization seen elsewhere, leaving Chad alone in receiving refugees, with its resources exhausted to the maximum.”
In early June, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees announced that more than 100,000 Sudanese, mostly women and children from Darfur, had crossed the border into eastern Chad in a month and a half of conflict.
They joined more than 680,000 refugees in this semi-desert country in central Africa, 60% of whom are Sudanese.
Afterwards, the UN agency expressed regret that only 16% of its funding needs for aid had been covered by the international community.
Kebzabo said in a speech that “Chad is seeking massive technical and financial support from countries and organizations and an international conference to raise funds” to help it deal with an “unprecedented migration crisis.”
In addition to tens of thousands of refugees from Cameroon in the west and the Central African Republic in the south, and more than 409,000 Sudanese in the east since the military conflict in 2000 and in Darfur in 2010, new refugees have been flowing since the beginning of the conflict on April 15 between the military leaders competing for power in Khartoum.
The border between Chad and Sudan is more than 1,300 kilometers long. The Prime Minister said that the refugees “have benefited from the solidarity of the host population who have received them and shared their meager resources, but Chad is increasingly facing internal crises related to the scarcity of its resources” in a country with an already fragile economy.
He added in front of representatives of the international community, “without your attention, solidarity, and sincere enthusiasm, Chad will not be able to bear the burden of this crisis alone.”
This complaint comes as millions of civilians in Khartoum and Darfur continued to suffer on Saturday from the ongoing war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, where diplomatic efforts have failed to find a way out so far.
The sound of warplanes and machine guns shook homes again in Khartoum, where civilians hid inside their homes out of fear of the bombing.
According to the United Nations, one and a half million Sudanese have left the capital since the outbreak of the conflict in mid-April between the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti).
Meanwhile, millions of other Sudanese who stayed in the capital have been living without electricity since Thursday, according to some of them.
