The United Nations reports six aid agencies in eastern Chad have temporarily suspended their humanitarian activities following some serious security incidents in the past couple of weeks.

The United Nations warns serious acts of banditry in eastern Chad over the last two weeks is jeopardizing humanitarian operations in the region.

Darfuri refugee women and girls face high levels of rape and other violence on a daily basis both inside and outside refugee camps in eastern Chad, despite the presence of UN security forces, a new Amnesty International report revealed on Wednesday.

In No place for us here: Violence against refugee women in eastern Chad, Amnesty International documents rape and other violence against women and girls in the camps, who face attacks carried out by villagers living nearby and members of the Chadian National Army.

The U.S.-based group Physicians for Human Rights says Darfuri refugees sheltering in refugee camps in Chad are subject to ongoing sexual violence. The group is calling for more global awareness of the matter in the wake of the U.S. government's new policy on Sudan.

Chad, one of the driest and hottest countries on earth, celebrated
the Day of the Tree on Thursday, the culmination of the Week of the
Tree, when its 9.4 million people were encouraged to plant at least one
tree each.

During the week, Chadian President Idriss Deby invited UNHCR
Representative Stefano Severe and other heads of UN agencies to plant
trees together with government officials in the outskirts of the
capital, N'Djamena. A similar ceremony was held in eastern Chad's
capital, Abeche.

The cash-strapped U.N. Humanitarian Air Service in Chad has been given a last minute reprieve thanks to a $1 million donation from the U.S. Government.  Without this donation, the U.N. World Food Program says it would have been forced to ground much of the service on August 15, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with no access to aid from humanitarian organizations.

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Ban Tut, the young head teacher of Akobo primary school, is proud
of his institution. His office is in one of the few brick buildings in
the southern Sudanese town, off an avenue of trees which was planted
before independence in 1956.

The study is a dark, cluttered room smelling of sweat from the many visitors waiting to see him.

Asked how many pupils attend school, the head teacher consults the register on his desk. "We have 2,655 children," he says.

And how many teachers?

"Twenty three," was the reply.

There are more than 100 pupils per teacher.

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Programme (WFP) may have to ground flights carrying aid workers to some of Africa's poorest countries within weeks unless it receives fresh donations, the United Nations relief agency said on Friday.

The WFP, suffering a funding shortfall this year as wealthy nations struggle to cope with the financial crisis, said its air service carrying aid workers to camps in the war-torn central African country of Chad would run out of money by Aug. 15.

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The slow deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Chad and the Central African Republic has limited their ability to deal with the poor security situation in both countries, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The United Nations Secretary General's special representative to the Central African Republic and Chad is scheduled to present his report on the region to the Security Council Tuesday. In his report, Victor Da Silva Angelo, will focus on the security situation in Chad which he said is influenced considerably by the situation in Sudan's Darfur region.

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The United Nations today called for an additional $200 million to provide aid to more than half a million people uprooted by violence in Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) and Darfur region of western Sudan, as demand mounts for humanitarian assistance.

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