ABECHE, Chad - Refugees and aid workers in eastern Chad told U.N. Security Council members Friday that their biggest worries are insecurity and banditry, which have been on the rise in the area for months.
Council members traveled to Chad to get a firsthand glimpse of the spillover from neighboring Darfur's five-year conflict and to push for reconciliation between Sudan and Chad.
Sudan broke diplomatic relations with Chad last month, blaming its government for backing rebels from the Darfur-based Justice and Equality Movement who attacked near the Sudanese capital. Chad in turn closed its border with Sudan and halted bilateral trade.
The diplomats flew from Abeche to Goz Baida and then visited two camps, one for refugees who fled across the border from Darfur and the other for Chadians living along the border forced to flee their homes because of the violence.
The rising number of refugees is taxing the local population and the government and "security seems a problem as well," U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolf said.
Wolf said they'd take what they had learned back to the council to see how it can address the issue.
He said members of the U.N.'s most powerful body also were concerned about the possible need to resettle both the internally displaced and the refugees elsewhere.
"They can't go back home. The insecurity in the region is one thing they keep citing that makes the camps the really only viable alternative at this moment," he said.
The U.N. says 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes by the Darfur conflict, and the death toll could be 300,000.
Eastern Chad is temporary home to some 300,000 refugees who have fled the Darfur conflict. The region also has camps for 187,000 Chadians displaced by fighting both locally and in Darfur.
The European Union is deploying 3,700 troops, including 2,200 French soldiers, to help protect civilians.
"What is increasingly concerning is the fact that the numbers of refugees continues to grow because violence is still going on on the other side of the border in Darfur," said Jean-Maurice Ripert, France's U.N. ambassador.
During meetings with women and elders in both camps, "insecurity always came as the main preoccupation," said Ripert, who is leading the council delegation.
He said the deployment of the new European force created to help protect the civilians is "a little bit slow ... but we really hope that during the summer the major deployments will be done."
Ripert stressed that the major responsibility for protecting the civilians lies with the government of Chad and the U.N. is training a special police force that would go into the camps to deal with violence there.
Aimee Ansari, an Oxfam U.K. spokeswoman, said there had been a rise in insecurity and banditry in eastern Chad since February, when rebels attacked the Chadian capital.
"That's really affecting our ability to operate. We have to be very careful. We have to travel in convoys and be careful where we go," she said, speaking on behalf of non-governmental organizations who met privately with the council, .
Before leaving Khartoum on Friday morning, Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed told reporters that Sudan had a message for Chad's President Idriss Deby.
"Tell him that Sudan and Chad is all family. Family can quarrel but not (try to take) the capital city. I can quarrel with you but not come in bedroom and sleep on your bed," he said. "Tell him 'you will pay dearly if you do it again.'"
The council plans to meet with Deby later Friday in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena.
The council will push for the Chadians to keep commitments made in a March peace accord with Sudan signed in Senegal, Ripert said.
The agreement is aimed at ensuring rebel groups from each country cannot use the neighboring country as a staging ground for incursions.
