TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 173

E/CN.4/1503

Annex I page 30

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94.

As devastation was wrought upon the capital N'Djamena by the opposing "Forces Armées Populaires" (FAP) of Goukouni and the "Forces Armées du Nord" (FAN) of Habré, between one and two hundred thousand inhabitants of the

the city many of whom had previously been displaced by earlier military conflicts fled across the Chari River

the Chari River to engulf the little town of Kousseri (10 000 inhabitants) in the northern tip of Cameroon. Coming on top of an earlier wave of 10 000 fleeing 1979 fight- ing, the newcomers, estimated at 200 000 by the Government of Cameroon at the time of the OAU mission in May/June 1980, posed serious problems to the host country. As the intensity of the fighting in N'Djamena diminished, many of the displaced crossed back into Chad, and a government enquiry undertaken in August 1980 revealed the number in Kousseri to be 100 000. Meanwhile, however, in the course

in the course of fighting which continued across the country, involving not only the FAP and the FAN but reportedly also the "Forces Armées Tchadiennes" (FAT) and the "Front d'Action Commune" (FAC), many more thousands of people fled until intervention by Libyan troops put an end to large- scale conflict. According to the OAU mission, as many as 40 000 Chadians crossed into Nigeria to seek asylum at Maiduguri, while the Government of Sudan estimated that at the end of 1980, 16 000 Chadian refugees were in the country. A smaller number fled into the Central African Republic. Out of a population of only 4.4 million, over a quarter of a million people appear to have left Chad at the height of the hostilities.

95. Following a request from the Government of Cameroon, 3/ UNHCR launched in May an emergency action to supply the refu- gees in Kousseri with immediate relief. At the same time, the League of Red Cross Societies arranged for Canadian and Swiss Red Cross medical teams to go to

to Kousseri to supplement the Meanwhile, ICRC, though obliged because of the hostilities to base its delegates in Kousseri from June onwards, succeeded except for a period from October to December 1980 when it had to suspend its activities altogether - in continuing the medical and relief work it had initiated several years earlier, as well as its functions related to provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Once fighting had stopped, ICRC organized a major "clean-up operation" in N'Djamena and instigated a feeding programme for 15 000 families in the stricken capital designed to help especially the most vulnerable individuals.

efforts of the Cameroon Red Cross.

3/ The Government's request for international assistance for the refugees on its territory was endorsed by an appeal of the OAU Council of Ministers meeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from 18-28 June 1980 (CM/RES.818(XXXV)).

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