Den fattige befolkning i Tchad i Centralafrika rammes af oprøret i Libyen, skriver FN-nyhedstjenesten, IRIN, onsdag.
Mange familier har fået mad på bordet takket være de penge, deres slægtninge har sendt hjem fra Libyen. Nu vender mange imidlertid hjem til Tchad for at for at undgå kampene i det nordlige naboland
DAKAR, 29 June 2011 (IRIN): Chadian families are facing worsening food insecurity, becoming more indebted, and selling off personal possessions as they try to cope with the loss of remittances from relatives who have returned home from Libya.
Remittances, which half of the households in Chad’s western and southwestern regions of Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal used to receive, are down by 57 percent, according to a survey by NGOs Oxfam and Action Against Hunger (ACF). Households on average were sent 220 US dollars per month.
Most families in the two regions have reduced the number of meals they eat; 70 per cent are eating less nutritious foods, while just under a third are resorting to wild foods such as leaves and berries.
One in five households interviewed had sold possessions to raise money; while most said they had taken out loans to get by.
At the same time, families are struggling to feed returning members: Some 43,000 migrants have returned in trucks from Libya to Chad over the past three months, according to Craig Murphy, operations officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In Bahr el Ghazal family size has increased by as many as 13 people, according to the Oxfam/ACF survey.
“These people are going home to zones which already experience food insecurity even when there is no `crisis’, said Philippe Conraud, head of humanitarian operations at Oxfam in West Africa. “They need food, water – the basics, to get by.”
People in the Sahel are chronically food insecure: In 2010 some 10 million people were at risk of hunger due to prolonged drought and poor harvests; almost one in five children were chronically malnourished, and 5 per cent severely, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).
