Sudanese Refugees Risk Being Stranded Along Border in Chad

IRIBA, Chad —  Thousands of refugees from Sudan risk being stranded on the border with Chad and exposed to attacks by militiamen unless they can be ferried to camps before the rainy season starts, aid workers say.

“We need more vehicles, petrol and food. My opinion is that we underestimated the situation here, and the response has come too late,” said Emile Belem, who heads the U.N. refugee agency office in Iriba.

The U.N. says 110,000 men, women and children have fled to Chad from Sudan’s Darfur region, where the Sudanese government has used aerial bombardment to smash a revolt and where a proxy force of horse-riding Arab militiamen raids farming communities at dawn.

Aid agencies have set up camps in this remote, impoverished corner of Africa to provide medical care and food in what officials called one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.