CERF allocates some $2 million to aid Central African refugees in Chad

Women in Chad [Photo: IRIN]

22 May 2009: As the security situation in CAR has deteriorated dramatically since the end of 2008, refugee influxes into south-eastern Chad have become increasingly common. While CAR refugees have been flowing into Chad in recent years, they had tended to go to the south-western part of the country. Aid groups had not predicted that some 15,000 refugees would flee to the area around Daha, placing strain on the meagre resources of already impoverished communities there. 

CERF has released nearly $2 million to enable the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) in Chad to help some 20,000 refugees who have recently fled violence in the Central African Republic. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) received some $750,000 to manage a camp for refugees who have arrived in south-eastern Chad, and will, for example, be able to provide them with plastic sheeting and blankets.  Another $675,000 in CERF funding will allow the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to feed 20,000 refugees for two months, and to distribute supplementary food rations for 2,000 vulnerable children and woman for three months. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will use an allotment of $365,000  to, for example, to build eight new clean water distribution points, while also rush medicines for fighting malaria, respiratory diseases and diarrhoeal diseases, to the families that need them before the onset of rainy season.

In addition, some $110,000 will help the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to reduce morbidity and mortality among refugee mothers and new-born babies. Some $100,000 will enable the World Health Organization (WHO) to help more people have access to basic health care through the provision of equipment for health centres, including basic solar lighting and enough medical supplies to cover 10,000 people for three months.

At the time of this allocation, Chad is the eleventh-largest overall recipient of funding from CERF, with some $32 million having been allocated from the Fund for emergency programmes there since 2006.

[last update: 8 June 2009]

16 September 2009: More than 600,000 people will benefit from nearly $5.5 million allocated in the most recent underfunded emergency round to support humanitarian agencies working in Chad.

Thousands of refugees and IDPs are in need of humanitarian support throughout Chad. Ongoing violence and insecurity in the region has displaced people within the borders and caused a massive influx of refugees from neighbouring Sudan and the Central African Republic. Recent needs assessments have shown deteriorating circumstances, such as increasing rates of acute malnutrition. Yet, Chad’s 2009 consolidated humanitarian appeal for $399 million is only 58 percent funded.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) received $1.9 million to enable nutritional, health and educational support for IDP and host populations and to provide protection activities for 10,000 children affected by the conflict. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been allocated $500,000 to supply emergency farming inputs to vulnerable households in eastern and southern Chad. Some $700,000 will assist the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to provide life-saving reproductive health interventions for more than 620,000 affected persons. Another $1.4 million will enable the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to provide shelter, non-food items, and critical services to 65,000 Central African refugees in the south and 180,000 IDPs in the east. The World Food Programme (WFP) has received $350,000 to enable Humanitarian Air Services to continue providing safe and economic transport for the entire humanitarian community. Nearly $600,000 will support the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide essential drugs to health centres, to carry out emergency surgery for refugees, IDPs and host populations, and to address acute malnutrition for more than 100,000 vulnerable people.
 

CERF in Chad 2008
CERF in Chad 2007
CERF in Chad 2006