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UNHCR buys Pakistani tents, airlifts them to Chad

May 27, 2004

KARACHI, Pakistan, 27 May (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency is airlifting 7,000 Pakistani-manufactured tents from Karachi to Chad to house Sudanese refugees fleeing ethnic conflict inside their country.

The airlift, using a chartered Il-76 cargo plane, is expected to begin as early as Friday. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is flying other emergency supplies from around the world, was awaiting formal approval of landing rights in Chad.

UNHCR expects it will take about nine flights over nine days to carry all of the 7,000 tents, which have been purchased from a Pakistani manufacturer. The UN Refugee Agency has frequently bought its tents from companies in Pakistan, which are selected on the basis of competitive bidding. Nearly 77,000 Sudanese refugees have moved to seven refugee camps set up in the interior of Chad by UNHCR and its partners. UNHCR teams continue to transport refugees from the border and to assist them in the camps.

The tents from Karachi will be dispatched to the three most recently established camps - Mille in the north, Breidjing in the central part of the region and Goz-Amer to the south.

UNHCR has had a long and close relationship with Pakistan. In addition to its role as a source of materials used worldwide for refugees, Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees over the decades since they first fled war in Afghanistan in 1979.

"Pakistan and UNHCR have worked closely together to help refugees for many years, both through the government and through commercial links such as the manufacture of the tents we use here and around the world," said Guenet Guebre-Christos, head of UNHCR in Pakistan.

UNHCR estimates there are 125,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad, including the 76,763 already in the camps. But there is a danger that more refugees could flow across the border from the Darfur region, where there are close to a million Sudanese in displaced persons camps.

In addition to the airlift of tents from Pakistan, another Il-76 is leaving Denmark with 2,000 pieces and 250 rolls of plastic sheeting, six prefabricated warehouses and three four-wheel-drive vehicles needed to assist the Sudanese refugees.

Separately, an Antonov 124 aircraft is scheduled to leave later this month from Germany with 10 trucks, registration materials, water bladders, generators, spare parts and buckets from Germany.

UNHCR is also flying in supplies from stocks in Tanzania, including 84,000 blankets, 6,000 sheets of plastic, 1,450 rolls of plastic sheeting, 16,000 jerry cans, 8,000 kitchen sets and sanitary napkins.
The massive international airlift is the second mounted by UNHCR this year. In February and March, UNHCR brought in 511 tonnes of tents, jerry cans, blankets and other supplies on 13 flights from Denmark, Tanzania and Pakistan.

"If the situation does not improve, we will see further refugee flows into Chad," Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, warned the UN Security Council last week. "The international community may be quickly overwhelmed and there is the potential for destabilisation of the sub-region."

"The humanitarian situation is appalling on both sides of the border," Lubbers, who visited Chad in March, told the Security Council. "There are now strong indications that both Janjaweed militias and various groups associated with the Sudanese rebels are operating in these locations."

The Janjaweed are ethnic Arab paramilitary groups accused of attacking black African communities and who are said to have triggered widespread displacement throughout the vast Darfur region of western Sudan. UN officials have called it the "world's worst humanitarian emergency".