IOM Chad Seeks Funding to Help CAR Returnees from Cameroon

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 20, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- IOM Chad is urgently appealing for USD 500,000 to help some 5,000 Chadians who fled the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) and are now stranded in Garoua Boulai and Kentzou on the Cameroon side of the CAR-Cameroon border.

The Chadians, who are expected to join IOM road convoys to Chad between 24th May and 16th July 2014, have asked IOM to help them to escape desperate living conditions on the border and return home. IOM Cameroon is working with the Chadian embassy in Yaoundé to issue them with travel documents.

IOM Chad has received emergency funding to cover some of the basic needs of the new arrivals, but no additional resources are available to provide them with psychosocial assistance, fitness for travel medical checks or onward transportation to final destinations in Chad, according to IOM Chad Chief of Mission Dr. Qasim Sufi.

“We urgently need funding to expand the reception site in Moundou, to register the returnees, to provide emergency medical assistance and to facilitate their onward transport,” he notes.

The crisis in the CAR has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee inside the country and to neighbouring countries. Since December 2013, over 100,000 returnees, CAR nationals and third country nationals have arrived in Chad.

At the request of the Chad Government, IOM has provided emergency transport for many of the returnees. It has also provided post-arrival assistance including healthcare, psychosocial help, referrals and the provision of onward transport to various locations in Chad.