Laura Lo Castro UNHCR‘s representative in Chad, said that the expected rain showers have started in Adre, leaving tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees without shelter suitable for protection. The rain is also hampering humanitarian access due to catastrophic flooding, she added.
“It is imperative that we scale up the response now and immediately move as many refugees as possible to safer areas away from the border, and help those we cannot move,” she said.
UNHCR and partners are working to complete a refugee settlement offering protection and assistance, but they need another $17 million to move and house 50,000 refugees there.
Traumatized and suffering
UNHCR has reported that the ongoing conflict in Sudan has forced around 600,000 civilians to move to Chad since April 2023.
Initially, people settled in “crowded, spontaneous places along the border, sleeping in makeshift shelters,” the agency said. The newcomers, mainly women and children, often arrive in poor health with only the clothes they are wearing. are traumatized and suffer from physical or gender-based violence.
UNHCR said these people “need essential protection services and life-saving assistance, including mental health and psychosocial support, shelter, food, water, sanitation and health care.”
Support for Sudanese refugees
UNHCR and partners are working to build five new refugee settlements and expand ten existing settlements, which currently house more than 336,000 Sudanese refugees.
The refugee agency also coordinates emergency assistance for forcibly displaced civilians in support of the government.
In addition, the agency and its partners, under government leadership, have worked with scarce resources to meet the needs of the Sudanese people and prevent a wider humanitarian crisis.
They said they have reallocated supplies and funds to “reduce interventions, resulting in lowering standards in all settlements.”
Yet they still need $630.2 million to meet the needs of Sudanese citizens who have crossed the border; only six percent of these have been secured.
“Families who crossed the border into Chad have lost everything,” Ms. Castro said.
“They depend on emergency aid to meet their most basic needs. We appeal to the generosity of our donors to urgently close the most critical gaps to protect and save lives.”