U.N. fears Sudan crisis worsening
(CNN) -- The United Nations says thousands of displaced persons in the Darfur region of Sudan could cross to Chad "if no credible measures are taken to make them feel secure inside."
Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the new director of operations in Sudan for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, made his warning Friday two days after he met 300 representatives for about 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Those talks took place in Masteri, a large village "swollen with the arrival of people displaced from other communities across the region," the UNHCR said in a news release.
The agency said it was concerned that "such an influx of 30,000 refugees in one single spot along the Chad-Sudan border, if it were to materialize, would put a strain on our ability to care for and feed refugees in our camps there."
This is the latest grim issue involving Sudan's Darfur, regarded across the globe as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The conflict in Darfur began last year when black Sudanese rebels attacked government property, accusing the government of neglecting Darfur in favor of the Arab population in Sudan.
The Sudanese government is accused of responding by supporting the Janjaweed Arab militias to put down the rebellion.
The Janjaweed have long competed with the settled population for land but are accused of going on the rampage in response to the revolt, setting fire to villages, killing, raping and driving people off the land.
More than 1.2 million people live as IDPs and another 200,000 as refugees in Chad because of attacks by Janjaweed militias and fighting between Sudanese forces and two rebel groups.
Meanwhile, African Union monitors in Darfur confirmed that the Sudanese military harassed and brutally treated IDPs at the Kalma camp the region and looted the camp, a U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Thursday.
