IOM Carries Out Air Evacuations from Chad-Libyan Border as Increasing Number of Migrants Require Medical Care
IOM has this week begun an air evacuation of thousands of migrants
who have fled the conflict in Libya and who are now stranded in
remote areas in Northern Chad.
More than 1,500 migrants have been flown from the northern
Chadian town of Faya to Abéché or the Chadian
capital, N’Djamena this week.
Recent arrivals of large numbers of migrants in Faya had led to
a bottle-neck of nearly 4,000 stranded migrants in this small
desert community in need of urgent assistance. An IOM transit
centre in the town has a capacity to accommodate and assist about
900 people although at the very least that capacity needs to be
doubled.
Air evacuation priority has been given to sick migrants who are
not able to travel by road to ensure timely and appropriate medical
care in N’Djamena.
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About 350 migrants are currently receiving treatment at Faya
district hospital, which normally has an in-patient capacity of 45
patients. With the hospital severely over-crowded, patients are
lying under trees or in tents. Many are on bed frames without
mattresses, reports the IOM team in Faya.
Since the start of the Libyan crisis, more than 23,500 migrants,
mainly Chadians, have arrived in the northern Chadian towns of Faya
and Kalait after a dangerous and gruelling journey across the
Sahara on heavily over-loaded open trucks with minimal food and
water for up to 25 days.
IOM staff in Faya report that although many of the migrants are
in remarkably good shape considering their ordeal, there are large
numbers suffering from severe dehydration, problems related to
irregular or no food intake, upper and lower respiratory illnesses
due to exposure to dusty and sandy environmental conditions, while
others are so physically exhausted that they cannot walk without
assistance.
The remoteness of Faya and Kalait is one of the biggest
challenges facing IOM in providing assistance to migrants fleeing
Libya.
IOM is currently helping a group of 276 migrants whose trailer
truck broke down 350 kms north-west of Faya in the mountainous
Tibesti region. The group finally arrived in Faya on Thursday,
although one of the migrants had died on the journey.
Last week, IOM staff en route to Kalait helped 115 migrants left
stranded on the sand dunes for five days when their truck broke
down. Without water and with minimal food supplies, they were
dependent on their survival in extremely high desert temperatures
on whatever the few passers-by could spare them.
All the migrants were taken in trucks to final destinations
elsewhere in Chad as part of an IOM road evacuation from Kalait.
However, journeys last between three to four days along routes that
are primarily sand and very challenging.
So far, IOM has evacuated 9,004 migrants by road and air from
Faya and Kalait to N’Djamena, Abéché, Bol and
Mao in Chad.
Nearly 770,000 migrants and Libyans have fled into Algeria,
Chad, Egypt, Niger, Tunisia and Sudan or crossed the Mediterranean
to reach Italy and Malta since the start of the Libyan crisis in
mid-February.
For further information, please contact:
Jean Philippe Chauzy
IOM Geneva
Tel: + 41 22 717 9361
+ 41 79 285 4366
E-mail:
"mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int
Jemini Pandya
Tel: + 41 22 717 9486
+ 41 79 217 3374
E-mail:
"mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int
or
Jumbe Omari Jumbe
Tel: + 41 22 717 9405
+ 41 79 812 7734
E-mail:
"mailto:jjumbe@iom.int">jjumbe@iom.int