By Daily Press staff
International Medical Corps, a global humanitarian relief agency headquartered in Santa Monica, is on the ground in eastern Chad preparing to provide health care and nutritional support to refugees fleeing violence in the Darfur region of neighboring Sudan.
The conflict in Darfur is one of the world’s major humanitarian crises, precipitated by a civil war that dates back 20 years but recently took a turn for the worse. More than 110,000 people have fled over the border into the desert of eastern Chad, which is extremely short on basic resources, such as food, water, firewood and even temporary building materials. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is working to relocate all 110,000 refugees to proper camps.
With support from UNHCR and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration, IMC will manage and implement health care and nutrition programs for between 18,000 and 25,000 people in three camps.
“The next two weeks are crucial,” explains Nancy A. Aossey, president and CEO of IMC. “There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to equip the camps and relocate the refugees, and eastern Chad is one of the most logistically challenging environments.”
UNHCR already has relocated more than 20,000 refugees, but nearly 90,000 remain in ad-hoc settlements, and time is running out to relocate them, volunteers say. Host communities have been exceedingly generous in providing assistance to the refugees, but most of their residents already live hand to mouth, and the sudden increase in population is quickly driving local food and water supplies to dangerously low levels, officials say. Moreover, when the rainy season starts in May, almost all roads serving the settlements will become impassable, choking off relief workers and supplies.
IMC will provide curative care to the sick and injured, as well as immunizations and other preventive care to children and pregnant women. Nutritional assistance will be administered to malnourished children and women of child-bearing age, and local health care workers, including traditional birth attendants, will be trained.
IMC specializes in making rapid improvements to health care capacity through both direct emergency assistance and comprehensive training of local health workers. Since its founding in 1984, IMC has responded to complex emergencies and natural disasters in more than 40 countries on four continents.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.