Chad said on Monday it would not accept any more refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region and would expel them unless the international community sent them back home or found another country to shelter them.
Prime Minister Nouradine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye gave the warning as thousands of fresh Sudanese refugees crossed Chad’s eastern border, fleeing recent attacks by Sudanese government forces and allied militia on towns in West Darfur.
”We can’t allow more refugees to come and create problems for us,” Coumakoye said. ”Let the international community, which is so soft on [Sudanese President] Omar Hassan al-Bashir, seek another country to shelter them.”
Chad is already sheltering more than 280 000 Darfuri refugees who fled violence in the war-torn western Sudanese region, and Coumakoye said his country had suffered attacks from Sudan because of the presence of the refugees.
”We are simply demanding that they be moved, otherwise we will do it,” he said, adding they could be moved back to Darfur. — Reuters