We have been on the ground in eastern Chad for over a year, battling blinding sand storms, torrential rains and scorching heat across vast distances in our efforts to help more than 200,000 refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region. While much has been accomplished, we still face many challenges.

Sitting cross-legged on a mat in the shadow of his shelter, Moussa Hassan Issakh relives the atrocity that led him and his family here, to the Djabal camp in eastern Chad. They were eating lunch when a Sudanese Government plane dropped a bomb on their village of Bindis in west Darfur.Armed troops and janjaweed militia in trucks and on horseback followed. They tore though huts and the village marketplace, killing and looting indiscriminately.

‘We went outside to find out what it was. I saw a dead man in front of the door,’ says Moussa. With no time to gather any possessions, the family ran for their lives. They were lucky. On that terrible day, around 450 people were killed as they fled, he says.

But the terror was not over.With janjaweed everywhere, the roads cut, and seasonal rains in full flow, it took months for Moussa’s family to reach the volatile border area. Here, tens of thousands camped in makeshift, unorganised sites, vulnerable to further attack. It was the UN Refugee Agency’s duty to get them to safety. And with your help, we did.

A shelter covered with UN Refugee Agency plastic sheeting is the first of seven healing spaces we’re striving to set up to help thousands of traumatised women and young girls – rape has been widespread since the start of this conflict.’ Jennifer Pagonis, UN Refugee Agency © UNHCR/K. McKinsey

Thanks to many generous people

More than 200,000 people like Moussa, his wife and three daughters have now been moved out of danger and into the security of UN Refugee Agency camps in Chad. At one time we were transporting more than 1,500 people per day. Emergency airlifts brought in thousands of tons of tents, blankets, plastic sheeting, soap and other essentials. ‘It could not have been accomplished without people like you who responded quickly to the crisis,’ says Eduardo Cue, a member of our emergency team in Abeche, Chad.

A complete package of help

‘Within a matter of months, we’ve made huge strides,’ Eduardo says. ‘We transported all these people and set up 11 camps in eastern Chad. After months of uncertainty and fear, they have somewhere secure to live and food, water and medical care. Many babies, children, men and women are severely malnourished but a supplemental feeding programme is in place to help them. We have services taking care of people who are badly traumatised – so many women here have suffered rape.’

Some 18,000 children started school in UN Refugee Agency camps this autumn, he adds, some for the first time in their lives.

An on-going crisis

UN Refugee Agency staff have driven for days over vast distances to locate, register and organise transport for refugees scattered along a 600 kilometre stretch of the border zone. However, new arrivals are still living in makeshift shelters along the border, suffering scorching heat during the day and freezing night-time temperatures. Raids by marauding militia continue unabated, underscoring the urgency of relocating the refugees. We must continue to ensure that people who want to move to one of our safe camps have the opportunity to do so.

The lack of water in this inhospitable desert region is proving to be another major challenge, says Eduardo. ‘Deep wells must be dug to supply the camps and in some cases water has to be trucked in. Together with our partners we are scouring the area for additional water reserves. We also need to help the local population, who are going short of water too.’

Planning for the next wave

With no end in sight to the violence in Darfur, plans are also underway for more camps. An estimated 1.4 million people have been displaced. We are planning to shelter and feed as many as 100,000 more refugees in the coming months.Will we have the money to do so? For the Darfur refugees, and everyone helping them through the UN Refugee Agency, one thing is clear. There is still a long way to go to overcome the daunting challenges ahead.

UNHCR’s Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie talking to displaced young girls about the vulnerable situation of women and girls in Darfur near the women’s centre in Ardamata camp. © UNHCR/R. EK Angelina Jolie reports from Darfur When UN Refugee Agency Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie rolled up her sleeves again to travel to the heart of the Darfur crisis, she found tragedy and fear everywhere. ‘I heard things like a 12-yearold girl and her mother gang-raped by five men. And a 10- year-old boy whose father had been killed, who was tied and beaten and left for dead.’ She found that what people want most of all is somewhere safe to shelter and protect their families. In her online diary, Ms. Jolie describes people wearing rags, who ‘have no access to medical care. But when you ask what they need even before food or clothes, they say security’. To read Angelina Jolie’s latest UN Refugee Agency diaries, go to the international website at www.unhcr.org.

TOP: A refugee woman carries firewood back to her tent in Oure Cassoni camp. Firewood is extremely scarce in the desert region where the camps are located, and competition over the meagre resources has sparked tensions between the refugees and the local villagers. © UNHCR/J.Clark