Darfur 24: Agencies
The World Bank announced in a statement on Friday new financing worth $340 million to help Chad confront several crises, including $90 million to address the influx of refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Sudan.
The funding comes in addition to ongoing financing worth more than $235 million to provide support to refugees and the communities hosting them in Chad.
The bank said that more than 400,000 citizens of Sudan and Chad have fled from Darfur to eastern Chad since the outbreak of war in April.
The influx of migrants has increased the need to provide humanitarian aid in one of the poorest countries in the world, and has also put pressure on natural resources.
The statement also stated, “The influx of refugee delegations, coupled with the poor harvest and the consequences of climate change, will lead to the exacerbation of food insecurity in the coming months.”
Chad was already hosting nearly 600,000 refugees before conflict erupted in Sudan in April.
The United Nations said on Monday that it expects more than 1.8 million people to arrive from Sudan in five neighboring countries by the end of this year, and appealed for $1 billion to provide aid to them amid reports of rising disease rates and increasing deaths.