U.N. agencies and NGOs will withdraw staff from three towns in violence-torn eastern Chad, leaving skeleton teams to help run camps housing 110,000 Sudanese refugees in the area, a U.N. official said on Monday. The planned pullout from Guereda, Iriba and Bahai in the eastern Biltine district bordering Sudan follows recent fighting there between Chadian government forces and rebels. "Because of the continuing deterioration of the security situation, there was a U.N. system-wide decision that we would relocate all international and local staff from Guereda, Iriba and Bahai," Helene Caux of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR told Reuters by phone. She said more than 200 U.N. and NGO relief personnel would be moved over the next few days, by air or road.
