Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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April 16, 2007

Oxfam Launches $10 Million Appeal for Chad, Sudan
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=1715F00:A6F02AD83191E160FF62E2B11125C4BB9574F7DCC14957C0 British-based
group says as fighting continues to spread from Darfur into eastern
Chad, its biggest emergency program in world will soon run out of
money International relief agency Oxfam launched a $10 million appeal
on Monday for its humanitarian work in Chad and Sudan. The
British-based group says as fighting continues to spread from Darfur
into eastern Chad, its biggest emergency program in the world will
soon run out of money. Aid workers say refugee camps along the border
are running out of life-saving resources. Phuong Tran has more from
VOA's Central and West Africa bureau in Dakar.







Darfur refugees, sitting under a make-shift shelter in this derelict
section of Es Sallam camp say they have been waiting nine months to be
relocated to decent shelters, 25 Mar 2007 Oxfam's director in Chad,
Roland Van Hauwermeiren, says water is running out in the camps.

"We can only provide three liters of water per person a day. And this
is in temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius," he said. "When you see that
people do not have [enough] water, there is additionally,
automatically a sanitation [problem] and a health [problem]."

Fighting between the government-backed Janjaweed militia and rebels
has left more than 200,000 people dead and displaced more than 2
million others on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border.

Chad's Oxfam program manager says cross-border raids in Darfur have
spilled over into Chad pushing more people into waste-infested and
disease-breeding camps.

"It is not only in Darfur. It became an internal Chadian crisis," he
said. We do not have the means immediately available and so fast in
order to respond directly to these exploding needs."

Oxfam policy manager for West Africa Michel Anglade says given the
constant fighting that seems to have no end, Oxfam's $20 million
budget for Chad and Sudan cannot last much longer.

"Both for refugees in Chad, [and] for people who are internally
displaced, there is no hope of coming back soon to their homes
.Unfortunately, there is no peace in sight right now," he saod.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is opening high-level talks in New York today
with the African Union that could clear the way for deploying a
sizable U.N. force in Darfur.

The talks are aimed at nailing down a tentative deal reached with
Khartoum to send about 2,300 U.N. troops to Darfur to bolster 7,000
underequipped AU troops, and will also focus on the final phase of the
U.N. plan expected to culminate in the deployment of a 20,000-strong
joint U.N.-AU force in Darfur.

Meanwhile, Sudan's foreign minister, Lam Akol, reportedly agreed today
to the second phase of a proposed three-phase U.N. support package.




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