Agency struggling to save the lives of people caught up in the Darfur/Chad tragedy

Oxfam today launched an £5m appeal to sustain its life saving work in Darfur and Chad. The international agency urgently needs the money to continue helping people in what has become the world's greatest humanitarian crisis.

Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's International Director, who recently returned from Darfur, said: "This is the greatest concentration of human suffering in the world. The international community has allowed the conflict to spread, blighting the lives of some 4 million people and forcing many to the very brink of survival. I was last in Darfur over 20 years ago and couldn't believe the change and the extent to which people's lives are being destroyed. In Darfur, villages are burnt-out shells and two-thirds of the population are dependent on aid. In Chad, the number of people forced to flee their homes has doubled in just four months. This is an outrage that affronts the world's moral values. We once more need the support of the British public to show that the world cares and help Oxfam to continue to keep people alive."

Oxfam is providing aid to 530,000 people - 470,000 in Darfur and 60,000 in Chad - including clean water, safe sanitation, public health promotion and helping people earn a living. At £10m a year, Oxfam's work in Darfur and Chad is currently its biggest emergency programme in the world.

In Darfur:

• More than two million people, nearly one in three of Darfur's population, have been forced to leave their homes and take sanctuary in one of the many camps. Each month another 10,000 are forced to flee


• Some four million people - two-thirds of Darfur's population - are dependent on humanitarian aid


• Despite managing to stabilise threats of epidemics in the camps, aid agencies are facing unprecedented difficulties in reaching those in need


• Across Darfur, aid agencies cannot reach a quarter of those in need, which means that nearly one million people are not getting any aid at all


• In some areas the aid effort is under threat due to increasing insecurity

In neighbouring eastern Chad:

• Some 375,000 people have sought shelter from armed conflict


• Chad was already hosting more than a quarter of a million refugees from Darfur. Now it has 140,000 of its own people displaced due to the fighting


• In parts of Chad aid agencies are only managing to get three litres of water to people a day for all their needs when the basic minimum ration should be 15 litres. (Just cleaning your teeth with the tap running consumes six litres of water).

Despite widespread public consternation, international efforts to deal with the crisis over the last four years have so far been ineffective and have allowed the conflict in Darfur to overspill into Chad. The United Nations appeals are chronically under funded (they have received only $40m of the $173m needed for Chad) and in Darfur malnutrition rates are rising close to emergency levels.

"Despite a level of attention to the crisis international political inertia has meant that there has been little effective progress towards a peaceful solution. Greater international efforts are needed. Meanwhile the millions of innocent people caught up in this outrage cannot wait for the politicians to agree. They need to be kept alive while the political inertia continues," added Lawrence.

To support the appeal, the famous war photographer Don McCullin has visited Oxfam's work in Chad and celebrities will be donating valuable items to be auctioned on ebay.

The public can donate to the appeal by:
· calling 0870 333 2500
· going online at www.oxfam.org.uk/emergency
· going into any Oxfam shop

What your money will buy:
· £25 could buy 50 chlorine tablets to ensure clean, safe drinking water for 2,500 people
· £100 could pay for two people to be trained as public health workers
· £200 could buy an Oxfam tap stand, able to provide 1,500 people with water every day

For more information contact: Ian Bray 01865 472498, 07721 461339 or email ibray@oxfam.org.uk

Notes to editors:
Oxfam can provide the following:
· Photographs by war photographer Don McCullin, just returned from Chad
· High resolution photographs and testimonies of people from the crisis
· Live interviews from aid workers in Chad and Sudan
· Live down the line TV interviews from aid workers in Chad
· Broadcast quality footage of crisis in Chad and of Darfur refugees
· Interviews with aid workers recently returned from the crisis
· Access to film telephone appeal centre in Oxfam House, Oxford
· Access to film at Oxfam's Emergency Warehouse in Bicester
ENDS