Up to 400 people, far more than previously feared, were killed in Chad during a cross-border attack by Sudanese Janjaweed militia about 10 days ago, the United Nations refugee agency said on 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 about 8 000.
The new estimated toll followed a visit to the remote area on Sunday by a group of United Nations agencies which described the scene there as ”apocalyptic”, UNHCR spokesperson 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.
The UN 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 eight-year-old boy told the UN 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.
Nightmarish situation
The number of wounded in the raids stood at about 80, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
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 south-eastern Chad.”
The villages are located 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 well over 200 000 people have been killed since 2003 in a war between rebels and Sudanese government forces and their allied militias.
The Geneva-based UNHCR has been warning for nearly two years about the spread of unrest from Darfur, ”the epicentre 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.” – Reuters