"The rebel assault on N'Djamena was the first time the rebels, usually menacing in eastern Chad, reached the capital". This is what the article states. I think that is not accurate. The rebels attacked the capital in April 2006, too.

Having said that, I want to let the world know that the aid the NGO's provide is just indespensible under such circumstances. Why am I saying that? Well ... back in the early 80's I crossed the Chari River in exactly the same way the refugees did two weeks ago. It is actually because of the aid provided by NGO's that we survived. I am very thankful, though this has long been overdue.

The article is very assuring that aid is being channeled for these refugees to the extent that some of them go to their homes in Chad during the night and come back for aid during the day. Gooooood news! This kind of aid works for the short term. But for the long term, something else needs to be done: 1. resolving the political crisis in Chad, 2. defusing the explosive situation in Darfur, 3. and building the state capacity to provide enough services for its citizens. To my mind, all of this can be achieved by offering good education. It might take a long time, but it works. To break the vicious circle of political violence, in other words, you need to educate the people. So instead of putting band-aid on gaping wounds, we should go down to the root causes of the refugee plight.

My heart breaks when I hear of this. Jah bless the NGO's for their fast response. How does one stop these rebels? Let us stop the west sending small arms to the rebels. Let us stop the greed for oil and natural resources by refusing to be hoodwinked by their lies and deceptions. Let us look corruption in the eye and say "this is not good enough and we will not accept it". How do we convince countries like Australia, where I come from, to take more African refugees? I feel that we have come to a time in the world where we cannot jealously guard our countries and try to selfishly hold on to what we have. We cannot say "this is mine". We have to share. If we cannot be there for one another, life will not be worth living for any of us. I am trying my heart out to get a grant to film a documentary on Africa, called "Dangerous Passage" about the ways people are risking their lives to get out of Africa and across the Atlantic to Europe. Thousands die on this sad journey of hope, not fully comprehending the hardships that they will have to face in deserts and on oceans, or how much money the people-smugglers will ask for the final leg of the journey. They get stuck with no way to go forward and no way to go back, fearing being rounded up and detained.

Hi Stargoddess36, I totally agree with you that something must be done to stop the rebels. But in order to stop them, we have to work out a system that runs a whole country. In other words, we have to work out a political settelment for the crisis in Chad (and by extension in the Sudan). One can see that these rebels do have a point to make. They might have not been to express what they want to say/do properly, but their quest for political reform might be justified. So the international comunity must get actively involved in finding a settelment that accounts for the interests of the population in Chad, a population that is multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multilingual. This is, understandably, a heck of a job. Chad is notorious for begeting extremely venal leaders. And the politicians running the current government are no exception. How can you fix that? No idea. You are also right to speak of the "greed for oil". That is the international dimension of the conflict in Chad. It needs to be addressed properly. If we have many more like you in the world, it will be a better place to live indeed. Yes we have to share. But I don't think taking more refugees is the way out. Yes it can be fine for the short term. But we should try to keep Africans in their countries and work out the difficulties they face. Usually the best are the ones who think of fishing out opportunities. If we can stop the brain drain, I think that will be to the advantage of developing the whole continent.