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UNHCR's emergency airlift in eastern Chad continues

Briefing notes

UNHCR's emergency airlift in eastern Chad continues

13 July 2004

UNHCR's emergency airlift to bring assistance to Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad continues with the first of four flights from Denmark scheduled to depart today. The airlift will bring in nearly 180 metric tons of blankets, jerry cans, plastic sheeting, kitchen sets and prefabricated warehouses on an Ilyushin 76 aircraft. Our airlift of tents from Pakistan also continues with the eleventh flight -in a series of 22 flights - scheduled to arrive today in Chad's capital N'Djamena. Another Il-76 airplane with 42,000 hurricane lanterns arrived from Dubai yesterday. When the latest series of flights from Denmark and Pakistan are completed, we will have carried out 66 emergency airlift flights to Chad so far this year.

Yesterday, UNHCR opened its ninth camp for Sudanese refugees fleeing Darfur into Chad at Oure Cassoni. The first UNHCR convoy of 258 refugees transferred to the new camp on seven trucks and two buses from the border town of Bahai yesterday. A second convoy is scheduled for today and convoys to the new camp will continue on a daily basis.

In all, more than 123,000 refugees are now in the nine camps in Chad. In the northernmost part of the affected border zone, the new camp of Oure Cassoni hosts 258 refugees. Further south near the town of Iriba, Iridimi camp hosts 15,008 refugees and Touloum camp has 15,287. Continuing south towards the town of Guéréda, Mile camp shelters 10,198 refugees and Kounoungo camp has 10,686. Near Adré town, in the middle of the affected border zone, Farchana camp houses 11,766 refugees and Breidjing has 27,718 registered refugees plus 1,771 more refugees who have arrived on their own at the site. Finally, in the southernmost part of the border region near the town of Goz Beida, 18,279 refugees are in Goz Amer camp and 12,307 are staying in Djabal camp.

In addition, nearly 7,000 refugees have found their own way to the Am Nabak site in the north where we have been distributing humanitarian assistance and are offering to relocate the refugees to an established camp. Registration has started at the Am Nabak site, with 4,915 refugees registered so far.