DAKAR, 22 Nov 2006 (IRIN). Efforts were underway on Wednesday to assist up to 10,000 people displaced by an attack last week on villages in southeastern Chad, while the whereabouts of three aid workers were still unknown.

One worker with Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) was killed and three others wounded in the attack last week on the town of Koloy and surrounding villages. Initially, MSF said 37 of its workers were missing.

“Three are missing. We don’t know about them for the time being but we hope to get some more news soon”, Filipe Ribeiro, head of mission in Chad for MSF, told IRIN on Wednesday.

MSF traveled to Ade, about 35 km northwest of Koloy, on Monday and Wednesday. It found up to 10,000 displaced people had arrived there in the past week, although it was unclear how many came from Koloy.

The aid agency said residents of other villages near Koloy, including Faradjani, Marmadengue and Kerwajb, which were also burned by the attackers, fled along with those from Koloy.

Ribeiro said the displaced at Ade had water and were able to go to nearby fields for food.

“Still we have to evaluate the situation. There is no big emergency regarding food but it might happen in the near future”, he said. Sanitation, adequate shelter and medical facilities were lacking, he said.

“We decided to ... help to support the [government] health centre with a team of nurses and one doctor”, Ribeiro said. He said the team would try to provide assistance the thousands of displaced as well as to the local population.

Ribeiro said the clinic at Ade was treating three civilians wounded during last week’s attack. He said it was unclear how many others might have been killed or wounded.

“When we opened the programme in Koloy it was because some people were displaced” and needed assistance, Ribeiro said. "People are moving and moving and moving and pushed out of the places where they are trying to settle”.

Meanwhile, around the area of Goz Beida, about 100 km southwest of Koloy, relief workers say they are preparing to relocate some 5,000 displaced people.

“We are trying to move them in the coming days to a new site”, Helene Caux, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), told IRIN on Wednesday. “They are spread around everywhere around Goz Beida town”.

She said the latest attack in the region occurred three days ago.

“The security situation is still extremely volatile”, Caux said. “People who have been displaced by the recent attacks are still not able to go back to their villages or what is left of their villages”.

UNHCR says armed men on horseback have attacked 23 villages in southeastern Chad since the beginning of November, and people have fled at least 20 other villages in fear of more attacks. At least 200 people have been killed and dozens others wounded. Some have had their eyes gouged out, while others have been burned after being trapped when their homes were set on fire.

Some 75,000 Chadians have been forced to flee their villages in the past year - 12,000 of them this month alone, according to UNHCR.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour warned on Monday that violence is increasingly spilling over the border from Sudan’s Darfur region.

“I am deeply concerned that the horrendous violence that has been wracking Darfur is affecting Chad”, Arbour said in a statement. “Action must be taken immediately to stop a full-blown Human Rights crisis in southeastern Chad”.

In addition to the spillover from Darfur, Chad is fighting an internal rebellion while inter-communal clashes have also escalated.

BOWARA, Central African Republic, Nov 22 (Reuters). Driven from their homes by armed raiders, terrified villagers in northwest Central African Republic say they are surviving in the bush eating roots, fruit and leaves.

Bands of unidentified gunmen began operating in this area nearly two years ago, sending thousands fleeing north over the border into Chad. Aid workers say attacks by both gunmen and government troops have got worse in the past fortnight.

"We are being chased into the bush like animals by the government troops", said Martin Deou, from Bowara village. "Our life on Earth has no sense any more", he said. Deou was one of a few young people who emerged from the bush near Bowara to meet a passing United Nations convoy on Tuesday.

Normally the rumble of a motor vehicle sends them fleeing further into the bush, fearing another attack. But, emboldened by the sight of U.N. insignia, the group said they were surviving by foraging for whatever edible roots and fruits they could find, as well as manioc leaves.

"Particularly in the last two weeks there has been a substantial increase in armed attacks", Marcus Prior, regional spokesman for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), told Reuters in the nearby administrative centre of Paoua.

The raiders had particularly targeted food stores following the recent harvest, Prior said, leaving villagers "surviving off manioc leaves and whatever they can find in the bush".

WFP launched a humanitarian air service this month to assist up to 1 million people who may have been affected by violence in northern Central African Republic, near the border with Chad.

"BEYOND GOVERNMENT CONTROL"

Residents say government troops have raided villages, accusing local people of helping the armed groups, thought to include disaffected Chadian mercenaries and local insurgents, who have demonstrated little obvious aim beyond banditry.

A former senior municipal official in Paoua told reporters late on Tuesday he had just been held captive for several hours by troops who accused him of collaborating with the armed bands.

Many nearby villages are deserted, their mud and straw huts looted or burnt, and thousands of displaced have converged on Paoua. Aid workers estimate around 150,000 need assistance.

The government in the capital Bangui plays down the numbers of displaced, and blames the attacks firmly on the armed groups.

"There are security problems, there are bandits", said Cyriaque Gonda, spokesman for President Francois Bozize.

Chad has sent troops over the border to operate joint patrols with Bangui's forces, strengthening their military cooperation since violence spreading from Sudan's western Darfur province engulfed parts of both countries in recent weeks.

France has offered Central African Republic and Chad logistical help and regional bloc CEMAC has pledged to increase the 380-strong force it already has in Central African Republic.

But military analysts say Bangui has long lacked control over much of the hinterland, especially in the north, and the mandate of the CEMAC force is weak.

"A lot of the land is beyond government control. You have so many groups out there, all operating with their own self interests", a military official serving with the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which covers the region, told Reuters recently.

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