The ICRC has been present in Chad since 1978. It currently has a delegation in N'Djamena and a sub-delegation, opened in 2004, in Abéché, the main town in eastern Chad. In all, it has 50 expatriate staff and 130 Chadian staff in the country.

The ICRC has been working in eastern Chad since 2004. It recently stepped up its humanitarian assistance when the internal conflict and other violence forced thousands of Chadians to flee their homes.

Today the ICRC is coming to the aid of over 50,000 displaced Chadians and the communities hosting them, by improving access to water, providing emergency shelter and other non-food relief, running programmes to help grow crops and keep livestock (and thus maintain self-sufficiency), and supporting health-care facilities.

In 2006 ICRC delegates visited 29 places of detention in Chad in which over 500 persons captured during fighting and some 200 security detainees were being held.

Visiting detainees

In 2006 the ICRC visited persons held in connection with the conflict and for security reasons, in order to assess their treatment and conditions of detention. Where needed it made suggestions for improvement by means of a confidential dialogue with the authorities, assisting them when necessary. It also provided detainees with hygiene items, and temporary food aid and monitored their health.

In the course of 68 visits, the ICRC visited a total of 2,084 detainees. The individual cases of 740 of these detainees were closely followed (of which 500 were detained in relation to the internal conflict). It delivered 81 Red Cross messages (brief, personal messages to relatives made otherwise unreachable by armed conflict).

Restoring family links

As a result of the conflict in Darfur, many families have been separated and their members do not know what has happened to their missing loved ones. Working both in Darfur and in refugee camps across the border in Chad, the ICRC uses Red Cross messages to help restore and maintain family links. The following figures pertain to 2006:

• the ICRC delivered over 8,800 Red Cross messages in Darfur and eastern Chad
• it processed tracing requests for a total of 554 persons separated from their families, with particularly urgent attention being paid to unaccompanied children
• it facilitated the reuniting of 30 persons with their families
• it restored contact between members of 121 families.

Water and habitat

Drinking water is often insufficient or even non-existent in both rural and urban areas affected by the conflict. The ICRC strove in 2006 to improve residents' access to it.

All projects were carried out in conjunction with local authorities, with the Société tchadienne d'eau et d'électricité in urban areas and with water committees in rural areas. As part of this collaboration, the ICRC trained Chadians to take over maintenance of the water-distribution network in future.

The ICRC ran projects to repair, upgrade and expand the water-supply system in Abéché, Adré, Tiné and Iriba (for a total of 150,000 beneficiaries). In all, 160,000 displaced people and residents benefited from the drinking-water projects.

Medical care for war-wounded people, the displaced and their hosts

The ICRC had two surgical teams working in Chad, one at the Hôpital de la Liberté in N'Djamena and the other at the regional hospital in Abéché. The organization refrained from any discrimination in treating war-wounded patients, be they civilians, government soldiers or anti-government fighters.

The ICRC supplied the hospital in Biltine and the heath-care post in Arada (the scene of fighting in the closing months of the year) with medicines and first-aid kits. It also supported the work of health-care posts in eight villages near the border that have received displaced persons. Finally, it used technical training and financial and material support to aid the Kabalaye limb-fitting and rehabilitation centre in N'Djamena, which does outstanding work for war amputees.

Finally, the ICRC built one health-care post and repaired and upgraded another in Goungour and Dogdoré near the Sudanese border

The following figures pertain to 2006:

• it treated 1,670 patients, including 214 patients requiring amputation
• it supplied 225 prostheses
• 56 members of health-care staff from NGOs, the Defence and Health Ministries, and civilian and military hospitals attended two ICRC war-surgery workshops, one in Abéché and the other in N'Djamena.

Economic security

The ICRC carefully monitored the economic situation of the Chadian population affected by the internal conflict in order to be able to respond to their needs when displaced as well as the needs of the residents of host villages. It launched programmes to bolster the self-sufficiency of pastoralists and farmers. It also distributed blankets, tarpaulins, mats, jerrycans, soap, seed and tools for the benefit of 56,000 people displaced by poor security conditions in eastern Chad.

The rules of international humanitarian law, or the "law of war", apply in the event of armed conflict. They require that people not taking part in the hostilities be spared the effects of the hostilities. They also limit the methods and means of warfare that may be employed.

In accordance with its mandate, the ICRC strove in 2006 to make the law known to the various armed services (Chad's national army and police force) and to other groups such as the political authorities, media and academic circles. Its aim was to promote knowledge of and compliance with international humanitarian law at all levels of Chadian society.

Armed forces

Working together with the Ministry of National Defence, Veterans and Victims of War, the ICRC did the following:

• organized seven events to promote international humanitarian law in the military academies in N'Djamena and units in the field
• lent its support to the working group in charge of drafting and printing 500 copies of the first national handbook for instructors in international humanitarian law
• sponsored two officers for advanced training in the law in San Remo, Italy
• sponsored training of 25 instructors to teach the law and promote its implementation on the battlefield.

To make international humanitarian law better known at various levels of Chadian society, such as among the political authorities, the media and university students, the ICRC:

• made a presentation of the law for 22 representatives of Chad's media
• organized courses in the law for 20 instructors at the universities in N'Djamena and Abéché as well as other centres of post-secondary education
• taught the law to 125 post-secondary students
• stressed the vital role that civil society must play in promoting it.

National authorities: implementation of international humanitarian law

In conjunction with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and African Integration, the ICRC held a meeting for 16 senior officials to initiate organization of the first national committee for the implementation of international humanitarian law.

The purpose of the ICRC's programme of cooperation with the Red Cross of Chad is to help that Society respond more effectively to the urgent need for humanitarian action in the country. To that end, in 2006 the ICRC:

• helped train Red Cross staff and volunteers involved in the Society's tracing work
• provided financial and technical support for the training of first-aid workers
• supported the Red Cross of Chad in its public relations work (radio shows, quarterly bulletin, etc.)