Why are we working in Chad?

Chad is the 7th lowest country on the 2010 worldwide Human Development Index (HDI) with 83% of people live on less than $2 a day (World Bank 2011)

Due to the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, which borders Chad, since 2003 over 250,000 people have fled across Sudan’s border and are currently living in 12 camps in eastern Chad.

The Darfur conflict was a civil war in which the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army(SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in favor of Sudanese Arabs.

Due to internal conflicts in Chad since 2005 185,000 Chadians have themselves been displaced by conflict and remain living in 38  camps for the internally displaced.

How is this affecting people today?

Life in the Sudanese refugee camps of eastern Chad and for the surrounding Chadian population is hard.  The 45 degree heat and dust storms of the summer, the risk of hypothermia in winter – and the destructive rains in the wet season- all compound to make camp life more difficult.

The traumas of what people witnessed and endured remain prevalent in the daily struggle to survive.  Freedom of movement outside the camps is limited by petty theft, banditry and violence towards women in particular.

For more information visit UNDP data on Chad.