Chad may allow peacekeepers on Sudan border

Source: CNN, June 12, 2007.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Chad may allow international peacekeeping troops to deploy along its border with Sudan to create safe passage for humanitarian aid to the war-torn Darfur region, the president of the African country said Tuesday.

President Idriss Deby said Chad was under intense international pressure to accept such a plan, but he wouldn't provide specifics nor confirm if he would allow U.N. troops to be deployed on Chad's border.

"Chad is a poor country, and it cannot stand up to the pressures by the world's major powers and the United Nations," Deby told reporters in Cairo after talks with the Arab League's top diplomats.

"In the past, we refused the international troops, but now the situation does not allow that, and if there will be further deterioration, we won't be able to resist," he said.

Deby said Arab and African countries have failed to put an end to the humanitarian disaster in Darfur, where more than 200,000 [400,000] people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in four years of fighting between the government and regional rebels.

The Chadian president's comments come as a senior African Union official said after a meeting in Ethiopia that Sudan accepted a revised plan for a joint African Union and U.N. peacekeeping force of between 17,000 and 19,000 troops that would replace an ill-equipped and understaffed AU force currently deployed in Darfur.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to a "hybrid" force in November but later backtracked on his approval. During a visit to Sudan on Monday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that al-Bashir told him he fully agreed to the proposed "hybrid" force but was adamant that all of the troops must come from Africa.

As part of France's efforts to boost diplomatic efforts on Darfur, Paris has announced it plans to host an international conference on Darfur later this month that will bring together European countries along with Egypt, the United States and China, Sudan's key diplomatic ally.

The conference will focus on creating the safe passage so humanitarian aid can reach people in the western Sudan region, Arab diplomats in Cairo said, speaking on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Deby said the suggestion of the safe passage was made to him by Kouchner during his stop in Chad earlier this week.

But so far, Sudan has not agreed to attend the conference.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol has said that the timing was not right to attend and suggested that international initiatives be handled mainly by the United Nations and African Union.

Just for the record, there are rumors that the UN peacekeepers are worse than the AU.

Libyan, Eritrean observers on Sudan-Chad border

Just one minute! Are they crazy?! Ugh!

Source: CNN.
April 12, 2007.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) -- Libyan and Eritrean military and security observers have been deployed at the border between Sudan and Chad, scene of recent clashes, a Libyan mediator said on Thursday.

"We agreed on positive steps and the presence of military and security observers on the border from Libya and Eritrea, and from Chad and Sudan, and right now some of them are there on the border," Ali Triki, Libya's envoy on Chad and Sudan, told a news conference.

He did not say when the observers were deployed or how many had been sent there.

"I believe the confidence between both countries will return to normality, and if they respect agreements then we will not even need observers," said Triki, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's top adviser on African issues.

Gadhafi has taken the lead in trying to broker peace between Chad and Sudan, which have traded threats and accusations since a clash on Monday when Sudan said 17 of its soldiers were killed.

Chad denied any deliberate assault on its eastern neighbor, but said its forces had clashed with Sudanese troops after crossing the border to pursue Sudanese-backed rebels it said were launching raids.

That incident marked a sharp flare-up of tension between the two oil-producing central African countries, which have seen their ties become increasingly marred by violence spilling over from the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

Both Sudan and Chad are resisting international efforts to deploy U.N. peacekeeping forces.

A late February summit hosted by Gadhafi to keep the peace between Chad and Sudan agreed "observation mechanisms" along the Darfur frontier.

Sudan has witnessed a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at easing tensions with Chad, including a visit by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

The No. 2 U.S. State Department official, John Negroponte, is due to arrive in Sudan on Thursday and then head to Libya and Chad to press for solutions to the Darfur crisis.

Negroponte is expected to deliver a tough message from Washington on Darfur. Sudanese officials have said international pressure on Darfur will only deepen the humanitarian crisis.

U.N. fears up to 400 killed in Chad raids

Source: CNN.
April 10, 2007.

GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Up to 400 people, far more than previously feared, were killed in Chad during a cross-border attack by Sudanese Janjaweed militia some 10 days ago, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Chadian authorities estimated last week that at least 65 people died in the early morning attacks on March 31 on two villages in eastern Chad, Tiero and Marena, home to some 8,000.

The new estimated toll followed a visit to the remote area Sunday by a group of U.N. agencies, which described the scene there as "apocalyptic," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"Estimates of the number of dead have increased substantially and now range between 200 and 400. Because most of the dead were buried where their bodies were found -- often in common graves owing to their numbers -- we may never know their exact number," he told a briefing.

Survivors identified the attackers as a coalition of well-armed Janjaweed militia "assisted by Chad rebels equipped with heavy weapons and vehicles," he said. It would be one of the most violent single incidents so far recorded on the volatile Chadian-Sudanese border.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Helene Caux said that survivors had reported recognizing some of the Janjaweed as living in Arab settlements around their villages, while others appeared to have crossed the border from Sudan.

The U.N. team found decomposing bodies near the villages, including those of a 30-year-old father of eight. Hundreds of homes had been burned to the ground, and there was an "overwhelming stench" from rotting carcasses of dead animals.

"There were many indications that people had little or no time to flee, given that many essential household goods, food and domestic animals were left behind," Redmond said.

"All along the route to those villages could be seen belongings abandoned along the way by those who collapsed. ... Many died where they fell along the road," he said.

An 8-year-old boy told the U.N. team that he had dropped to the ground to "escape bullets that came like rainfall" as he fled Tiero. A girl his age had died of a gunshot wound to the head as she got up to run, he said.

"The number of survivors who have provided us with heartbreaking testimony such as this is overwhelming. It paints a portrait perhaps better described as a massacre than an attack," Redmond told Reuters.

Khartoum has denied any responsibility for the deadly raids.

The number of wounded in the raids stood at about 80, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many of those who survived the initial attack, especially elderly and young children, had died in subsequent days from exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing, it said.

Some 9,000 Chadians -- mainly women and children -- from the surrounding area had fled after the attacks, joining another 9,000 compatriots who had fled earlier raids, the agency said.

"The whereabouts of many men remain unknown," Redmond said. "This is really a nightmarish situation that is occurring in southeastern Chad."

The villages are in the Wadi-Fira region of Chad's eastern border with Sudan. Chad has identified the raiders, some mounted on camels and horses, as Sudanese Janjaweed militia.

The raids appear to be another spillover of violence from Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in a war between rebels and Sudanese government forces and their allied militias.

The Geneva-based U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has been warning for nearly two years about the spread of unrest from Darfur, "the epicenter of conflict in the region," Redmond said.

"We have seen a dangerous escalation for a long time, not only in Darfur, but in Chad and Central African Republic," he said. "That situation is continuing, as evidenced by the tragedy we just saw in the two villages."

Chad: Rebels driven back after attack on troops

Source: CNN.
April 9, 2007.

N'DJAMENA, Chad (Reuters) -- Chad said it had routed an attack Monday by a rebel convoy of more than 200 vehicles launched from Sudanese territory, just two months after a nonaggression pact signed by the two countries.

Information Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement the rebel forces had been routed after attacking army troops in the border village of Aldjirema. At least eight Chadian soldiers and numerous rebels were killed, he said.

"Chad expects the international community to unequivocally condemn this enemy aggression led from Sudan against Chad and take appropriate measures to compel the Sudanese government to abandon its expansionist plans to destabilize Chad," Doumgor said.

The rebel Chadian National Concord, in a statement signed by its military commander, Mahamad Hassan Kokiss, confirmed heavy fighting had taken place but said government forces had attacked its troops first.

"After six hours of resistance, our forces redeployed to new positions, and the enemy remains within our reach," Kokiss said, saying the fighting violated an agreement signed in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Chad had signed a peace deal with another rebel group in Tripoli in December and a nonaggression pact with Sudan there in February. It was not immediately clear whether Kokiss was referring to either of these.

President Idriss Deby's government said exact casualty figures for the rebel forces were not yet available but 38 of their vehicles were destroyed in the attack.

The Chadian National Concord said the rebels had lost three vehicles and 10 men, while destroying 35 government vehicles and killing numerous soldiers.

Doumgor said the convoy was made up of forces from several rebel groups, including the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development of Mahamat Nouri and the Rally of Democratic Forces led by Tom and Timan Erdimi, nephews of Deby.

The four-year war in Sudan's western region of Darfur has spilled across the border into Chad.

N'Djamena accuses Sudan of backing Chadian rebels based in Darfur, while Sudanese Arab militia known as Janjaweed are raiding ever further into eastern Chad.

Khartoum has denied any support for Chadian insurgents.