III. Summary
There is no army, and all the men from our village are dead. All the men are dead, and the children are too young to fight. We decided to go back to our village to plant crops, but it was not safe, and now there is no one left there. There are only the trees.
—Internally displaced woman who fled Faradjani village in the Dar Sila region of eastern Chad following a December 2005 militia attack. Interviewed at the Kaloma internal displacement site, June 11, 2008.
Fighting between Chadian rebels and government forces in eastern Chad in early May 2009 underlines how the intertwined wars in Chad and Sudan are creating conditions in which farmers and nomads alike continue to be at risk of displacement. The vast majority of the 167,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) already in camps in eastern Chad are unable to return home in safety and dignity. A cocktail of armed groups—Chadian and Sudanese rebel factions, community-based militias, and loosely organized criminal gangs—represent an ongoing risk to IDPs who venture back to their areas of origin, especially in the southeastern area of Dar Sila. Meanwhile, disputes over land access and tenure remain a combustible factor underlying much of the violence, both currently and in the past.
Fighting between government and rebel forces erupted again near Koukou-Angarana in early May 2009, forcing the evacuation of aid agency personnel. Koukou-Angarana hosts approximately 40,000 IDPs and 20,000 Sudanese refugees, yet is an area in which the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), dispatched to eastern Chad by the Security Council in 2007 to protect civilians and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, had no permanent presence until shortly after the fighting between government forces and rebel troops in the area had subsided.
The vast majority of IDPs in eastern Chad currently prefer to stay in their displacement sites for fear of violence and insecurity. Yet as the planting season begins many displaced persons who are unable to find land close to camps will return to their areas of origin to plant and harvest crops to supplement agency-supplied rations and to reassert their rights over land, even though information about security conditions outside camps is scarce and difficult for IDPs to assess. Although most of the eastern border is volatile and precarious, levels of insecurity vary from canton to canton. For many IDPs, return will be explicitly temporary—the return of some members of the family to cultivate, leaving others in the greater safety of IDP camps.
Many of the 40,000 IDPs who returned home in 2008, nearly half of them on a temporary basis, found schools and health centers in ruins. However, safe conditions for dignified return are not merely an issue of services and infrastructure. In many areas IDPs also encountered a complete absence of the rule of law, which is essential for safe and dignified IDP return and for putting an end to human rights abuse. If humanitarian support in areas of return outstrips the provision of real security it can become a pull factor leading people into danger. These are fundamental issues that need to be addressed as government, the UN, the EU, and key donor governments consider potential durable solutions for Chadian IDPs. The Chadian government, supported by MINURCAT and UN agencies, should strengthen police and judicial institutions in order to promote the rule of law, including by holding those responsible for gross abuses of human rights accountable for their crimes.
The continuing military conflicts in Chad and Sudan mean that the idea of substantial IDP return looks unlikely, and as yet there is no talk of a UN and EU-supported governmental policy of promoting organized return. It remains a reality that humanitarian access to both IDPs and returnees is constrained by insecurity—and that conditions on the ground can change rapidly from week to week, as the fighting around Koukou-Angarana in early May demonstrated.
However, neither government, the UN, nor the EU is keen to support long-term displacement and, where conditions allow, localized return is an option for IDPs, authorities, and agencies. Indeed, supporting the creation of conditions for voluntary, secure, and sustainable IDP return is central to MINURCAT’s mission. The European Commission is already funding projects to resettle IDPs in areas of origin. Meanwhile, the governor of Dar Sila, recognizing that the majority of IDPs come from insecure areas, is preparing to relocate IDPs to new displacement sites where the government can better provide security.
The protection of civilians, including IDPs, along with the provision of humanitarian assistance, is the primary duty and responsibility of Chad’s national authorities. Integral to protection is ensuring that IDPs have the capacity to make choices—they have the same rights as any other citizen—and are not coerced into remaining in or moving to locations that are unsafe, or forced to live in undignified conditions. In appropriate areas, a government-led, UN-supported process of staggered and deliberate return could support spontaneous returns while at the same time continuing assistance to those who decide to remain in their displacement sites or wish to relocate to safer areas of the country.
The bottom line, however, is that displaced persons should not be encouraged to return to their homes until they feel it is safe. They need to be provided with accurate information about security conditions in their home areas, but also with the means to reach their own conclusions about risks (for example, by facilitating on-the-spot assessment by trusted members of the community). Similarly, they need to have the possibility of integration or relocation in safer areas of the country. Any relocation initiative must ensure the full participation of both the displaced and members of non-displaced local communities.
The root causes of recent violence in Dar Sila are complex, but prominent among them are differences between historically privileged groups seeking to defend their primacy within traditional systems of land tenure and marginalized groups seeking to secure rights to land, including tenure. Reconciliation efforts sponsored by traditional leaders, the government, and the UN are doing little to address tenure and associated issues. While issues around land rights are immensely complex and are rendered even more difficult as conflict alters the contours of nomadic ranges and areas under cultivation for many different communities, effective mechanisms should be put in place to deal with disputes that may arise when displaced persons return to their homes of origin and find their property occupied. Certain families, such as woman and child-headed households, are likely to be particularly vulnerable if disputes break out, and interventions to ensure their rights are protected will be necessary.
Meanwhile, new resentment has emerged between communities in Dar Sila over perceived bias in access to aid, brought about by differential access to humanitarian assistance caused by logistical and security constraints. While these constraints are deep-rooted, humanitarian assistance programs should be reviewed to ensure that they benefit those civilians in greatest need, and as far as possible measures should be taken to prevent differential access to aid from aggravating tensions between communities.
MINURCAT has an essential civilian protection role to play, in liaison with Chad’s army, gendarmerie, and police force, as part of its mandate to contribute to the creation of a secure environment conducive to the safe return of IDPs and refugees. MINURCAT, however, is thin on the ground, with less than half its mandated complement of 5,200 troops yet deployed.
Widespread militia attacks in eastern Chad that began in late 2005 left hundreds of civilians dead and forced at least 180,000 into camps for internally displaced persons, mostly in the southeastern border region of Dar Sila. Government security forces allowed the violence to continue virtually unchecked.
In response to widespread rights violations in eastern Chad, the UN Security Council approved MINURCAT in September 2007. A European Union bridging force (EUFOR) appears to have deterred a resumption of mass killings, but it was largely unable to fill the security vacuum left by the lack of government presence in the east. In January 2009, the UN Security Council replaced EUFOR with UN peacekeeping troops, and established a set of benchmarks to evaluate the success of the mission that included the return of IDPs to their areas of origin. In March 2009, the UN took control of the military component of the mission from EUFOR.