International relief agency Oxfam on Thursday blasted the international community for not responding to a United Nations appeal for donations to address a humanitarian crisis in Chad.
“The international community has so far failed to halt the spread of this conflict,” Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs said in a statement.
“This has been an international political failure. The crisis must not become an international humanitarian failure due to a lack of adequate funding,” he insisted.
The agency pointed out that the UN this year has appealed for $174-million to help the Central African country.
Oxfam, which is participating in the humanitarian efforts in the eastern Goz Beida region near the Sudanese border, criticised Japan, Italy, Spain, Australia, Germany and France for their “inadequate or non-existent response to the UN humanitarian appeal for Chad”.
The group claimed that crucial projects to supply water and sanitation systems lacked funding.
“Oxfam is calling on rich countries to fund urgently the appeal if the increasingly desperate humanitarian needs are to be addressed,” the group said.
Eastern Chad has been wracked by fighting between rebels hostile to President Idriss Déby Itno and government troops.
Traditional ethnic tensions in the region have also been exacerbated by a surge in the number of internally displaced people and refugees pouring in from neighbouring Sudanese Darfur, where four years of ethnic strife have resulted in at least 200 000 deaths and the displacement of more than two million people, according to UN figures.
“The humanitarian crisis is quickly deteriorating with increased needs because of the recent numbers of people forced to flee the fighting,” Oxfam said, pointing out that since last May, “the numbers of Chadians forced to flee the fighting in the eastern part of the country has more than quadrupled, from 30 000 to 140 000.”
“The situation has now reached an even more acute crisis with 10 000 people needing urgent assistance following attacks over the last month,” Oxfam said. — AFP