Sudanese refugee women from Darfur wait for water at Toloum refugee camp in eastern Chad. With the influx of refugee’s, competition is fierce for Chad’s limited resources.
Credit: Liliane Bitong Ambassa/IRIN |
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Since 2003, some 200,000 civilians, many of them women and children, have crossed into eastern Chad, fleeing the ongoing violence in the western Sudanese Darfur region.
The refugees and the local population must share the region's limited resources, and competition over food, firewood and water has increased.
Most hosts and guests come from the Massalit and Zagawa ethnic groups. They are united by language and custom, but they are separated by an invisible line in the sand. Conditions in eastern Chad are hardly hospitable - the Sahel zone is one of the world's most marginal regions. The land is arid, the climate harsh. There is little vegetation.
A sudden influx of uninvited guests can tax even the most generous hosts, especially when they are among the world's poorest people and vastly outnumbered by their visitors.
To help protect the refugees and to prevent armed groups from seeking sanctuary among the refugees, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) set up 12 refugee camps at least 50km from the border. The size and location of refugee camps, however, was determined by the availability of water. It is expensive to drill a well, and only about one-third of the wells drilled hit water and the quantity of water is often low.
"Water is one of the most important issues in eastern Chad," Monica Noro, UNHCR’s senior technical coordinator in Abeche town, told IRIN. "Water projects are very complicated - it requires a lot of effort - and often water is not there; even after hydrological studies."
One of the camps in the northeast still depends on water that is brought in by trucks. Humanitarian agencies want to relocate the camp and are looking for a more suitable location with guaranteed water access.
Perhaps surprisingly, most of the villagers in eastern Chad initially accepted the newcomers. Following the dry conditions in 2005, however, water and pasture availability has become increasingly limited.
"Competition for water, firewood and grazing lands has led to increased tensions between the refugees and host communities. But very little funding is available to assist the host communities," Jan Egeland, the UN's Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, said about Chad in a briefing to the Security Council. "Unless we are able to provide relief equitably to both groups, our aid risks becoming another source of instability."
Aid officials have reported increasing incidents of violence against women refugees who venture outside the camps to find firewood. Conflicts among ethnic groups and between farmers and pastoralists are already common, and refugees in camps often outnumber the local population.
The Bredging refugee camp houses more than 27,000 Sudanese near the town of Adre - across the border from El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State. Bredging is also the name of a village of 960 people just a kilometre outside from the camp. The hills are already being stripped of trees for firewood, and the refugees' cattle threaten to exhaust nearby grazing land.
To reduce the pressure on the environment, aid workers have taught the refugee women how to use fuel-efficient stoves called "save-80s" and improved mud stoves. "They save energy and avoid the erosion of natural resources," Noro said.
Water is hard to come by in the east of landlocked Chad. The land is arid, the climate harsh, and there is little vegetation.
Credit: IRIN |
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"We didn't have any conflicts so far specifically over water issues, [but] we are closely checking the water table and obviously during the dry season there are more shortages," she observed. "And we are involving all the local authorities in the planning of the camps."
Humanitarian organisations have also expanded their aid programmes in the region to provide additional assistance to help poor local communities adjust to the impact of refugees.
Water levels low
To provide the refugees with safe water, aid workers are digging new wells for the camps.
"There are tensions already between the local population and the refugees, which was not the case in the beginning; because the local population think there are a lot of refugees to share the resource with. After a while, it may become too much," said Cedric Fedida, a spokesman for Oxfam.
Acknowledging the problem of water access for the local population, a humanitarian agency has installed water pumps to improve water supply in towns, such as Abeché, Iriba, Tiné and Adré, which are near refugee populations.
In addition to diffusing local tensions, the local water sources will help meet the demands placed by a growing population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have entered the region as a result of violence spilling over the border from Darfur and targeting local communities.
"IDPS are not absorbed in the refugee camps," Noro explained. "They are mostly settling around the towns, and local authorities provide them with a place to settle."
Water is a complex issue, however. Refugees International was told that a village turned down an offer from an NGO to dig a well for them. A well, said the villagers, would attract nomads, and their flocks would trample the crops and cause conflict. The villagers believed it would be better to forego a well and provide for their modest water needs by hand-digging shallow seep holes in the ‘wadi’, or dry riverbed.
Avoiding local resource conflicts
The provision of water and humanitarian assistance to the local population must be complemented by appropriate environmental measures, as a sizeable refugee operation will invariably affect local livelihoods and welfare through the use of local resources.
"This can lead to strained relationships with the host communities. In extreme cases, the competition for natural resources can turn local communities or governments against refugees and threaten the very institution of asylum," UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane said.
As a result, the refugee agency is planning to distribute more than 300,000 seedlings from its nurseries during the rainy season so the refugees and host communities can plant trees in the camps and surrounding villages.
"The timing is very important," said UNHCR's environment expert, Valentine Ndibalema. "We distribute the seedlings when the rainy season starts so that the trees can sprout quickly. Each family is responsible for a few trees, and when the rains stop, we teach them how to use wastewater and kitchen water to maintain the trees. We're trying to promote simple techniques so everyone can participate."
"There are a lot of tree nurseries and plantations around the camps," Noro added. "This type of operation is carried out because of the particular nature of the situation in Chad - the environment is quite dry and desert-like. The camps are big, and the populations are staying for quite a long time."
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