About This Report
The Risk of Return
June 19, 2009

IV. Recommendations

To the Government of Chad

  • Re-occupy all garrisons in Dar Sila and renew regular patrols to ensure the protection of civilians.
  • Continue assistance to IDPs who choose to integrate into displacement sites.
  • Distribute arable land to IDPs who wish to cultivate crops near their displacement sites, and ensure that local populations are consulted in all land distribution efforts and that their rights are preserved.
  • Investigate and prosecute those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law or human rights law.
  • Instruct the National Land Observatory to 1) advise local and national government officials on land rights in Dar Sila, and 2) identify the displaced owners of abandoned land.
  • Support and validate traditional conflict-resolution structures while avoiding partisan and inappropriate interference.
  • Ensure that senior civilian and military officials serving multi-ethnic communities are genuinely sensitive to the concerns of all communities and have the ability, including necessary language skills, to do their job effectively.
  • Develop and publish a detailed, time-bound plan to provide displaced civilians with water, sanitation, and access to health care and education.
  • Provide protection for displaced persons returning temporarily to their homes during agricultural season.

To MINURCAT

  • Monitor and report on security conditions in Dar Sila and other insecure areas and identify where further assessment is needed to evaluate risks to IDPs who may return to their homes.
  • Partner with Chadian police and security forces in combating impunity, with an emphasis on arrests and prosecutions.
  • Conduct human rights monitoring of all government initiatives to return or relocate IDPs.
  • Support the establishment of a standing body of traditional leaders to link protection and assistance efforts with reconciliation and return processes, in coordination with the Association of Traditional Chiefs of Chad (Association de Chefs Traditionnels du Tchad, ACTT).
  • Assess the appropriateness of establishing safe corridors for IDPs temporarily returning to their homes during agricultural seasons—and, if appropriate, provide them.

To the Special Representative of the Secretary General

  • Highlight the need for assistance programs to support spontaneous returns only so long as a local capacity to sustain security is in place, and urge governmental and non-governmental actors to present IDPs with safe and voluntary alternatives to return, such as integration or resettlement in other parts of the country.
  • Highlight the need for both MINURCAT and the Chadian government to help create conditions allowing safe, dignified, and permanent return of displaced persons to their homes and to patrol seasonal return corridors and temporary returnee sites, particularly during agricultural periods, within means and capabilities.

To the United Nations Security Council

  • Mandate MINURCAT to support the Chadian government in the investigation and prosecution of violations of international humanitarian law or human rights law, and request that MINURCAT and the Chadian government cooperate in the apprehension of alleged perpetrators of serious human rights violations in Dar Sila.
  • Place Hamid Dawai, Abdullah Ahmad Shinebad, Hassan Saleh Al Gadam al-Djinnedi, Mahamat Tahir Nouradine, and other individuals responsible for attacks against civilians on the list of persons subject to sanctions by the UN Sanctions Committee.

To the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid

  • Ensure that food assistance continues to displaced persons whose home villages are situated in unsafe areas.
  • Develop a set of definitive criteria for use in distinguishing temporary and permanent returns.
  • Conduct a comprehensive survey of internal displacement in eastern Chad, including, if sufficiently secure, areas not previously surveyed due to insecurity in the sous-préfectures of Adé, Koloye, and Mongororo.
  • Review and monitor humanitarian policy and practice with a view to minimizing tensions related to differential access to humanitarian assistance.

To the European Union

  • Provide maximum financial support to the MINURCAT voluntary trust fund for Quick Impact Projects.

To Non-Governmental Organizations

  • Monitor MINURCAT efforts to provide security in return areas and assess the extent to which those efforts create the conditions for long-term returns.
  • Extend operations into rural areas to the greatest extent possible within means and capabilities.
  • Ensure that formal charges are filed with Chadian authorities following attacks and abuses against humanitarian personnel, and request that MINURCAT’s rule of law unit track the progress of each complaint through the Chadian justice system.