Mick Hartley

According to Human Rights Watch, “militias based in Darfur are launching cross-border raids on villages in Chad on an almost daily basis, killing civilians, burning villages, and stealing cattle in a pattern of attacks that show signs of ethnic bias”:

Human Rights Watch researchers documented numerous cross-border attacks on Chadian villages along the border between Adré, Adé, and Modoyna in eastern Chad since early December 2005. Most of the attacks were by Sudanese and Chadian militiamen from Darfur, some with apparent Sudanese government backing, including helicopter gunship support.
Tens of thousands of people are now displaced internally within Chad by the violence. Most of the victims are from the Dajo and Masalit ethnic groups, which live on both sides of the international border. Chadian Arabs living in the same area appear to enjoy immunity from attack, although some have left their homes and taken refuge in Sudan, apparently for fear of reprisals.

Human Rights Watch also documented a new influx into Chad of refugees from Darfur, people already displaced by attacks in Darfur in 2003 who had been living in the Mornei and Misterei camps in West Darfur. Many of these people said that they fled to Chad to escape continuing attacks on the camp residents by the Sudanese government-sponsored Janjaweed militia.

“You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn’t get worse, but it has,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “Sudan’s policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad.”

The government of Chad has already declared that it’s in a “state of war” with Sudan.