Refugees from Chad face desperate situation, says CRS spokesman

Published: 2008-02-08

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Thousands of people who fled Chad to neighboring Cameroon after rebel fighting in early February are in a desperate situation without any infrastructure to support them, said a spokesman for the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services. "They're in a predicament: Do they stay in Cameroon where they don't have drinking water, or go back to Chad where there is no money?" Lane Hartill, regional information officer for CRS in West Africa, said in a Feb. 8 telephone interview from Dakar, Senegal. There is very little food available in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, after a Feb. 2 and 3 rebel attack and "there is no access to cash" with banks closed, he said. Markets were looted in the fighting and food that is available is expensive, Hartill said, noting that an egg costs five times what it did a week earlier. But the capital does have drinking water, and electricity has been restored in some areas, he said.

Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .