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Aid groups to reduce staff in threatened Chad town

By Betel Miarom
N'DJAMENA, April 11 (Reuters) - U.N. relief agencies and other humanitarian groups will pull some of their staff out of a town in eastern Chad threatened by rebel raids, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The measure highlighted the deteriorating security situation in the east of the landlocked central African oil producer, where rebels opposed to President Idriss Deby have stepped up attacks in a campaign to disrupt elections next month.

Deby, who is standing for re-election in the May 3 polls, accuses neighbouring Sudan of supporting insurgents from its conflict-torn Darfur region -- a charge denied by Khartoum.

A rebel column on Monday temporarily occupied the Chadian village of Koukou Angarana and the nearby Goz Amir refugee camp housing more than 17,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region, which lies about 100 km (60 miles) away over the border.

U.N. officials said one Chadian gendarme was killed and three others were injured in the raid on the camp, which is about 50 km (30 miles) from the main local town of Goz-Beida.

"The United Nations and most NGOs have decided to reduce staff at Goz-Beida ... as a security precaution," UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesman Matthew Conway told Reuters.

Speaking by telephone from Abeche, some 270 km (170 miles) to the north of Goz-Beida, Conway said the rebels appeared to have pulled back from both Koukou Angarana and the refugee camp.

"All our offices in the east have checked in and calm is prevailing," he said.

A leader of the rebel United Front for Democratic Change (FUC), which said it carried out Monday's raids and attacks on Sunday against southeastern towns, told Reuters on Tuesday FUC forces had withdrawn from Koukou Angarana.

"We don't attack refugee camps or humanitarian workers, only government forces," Abdoulaye Abdel Karim said. He said he was speaking by satellite phone from eastern Chad.

"PROPAGANDA WAR"

Diplomats and aid workers said recent rebel statements announcing the capture of major towns in the east -- which later turned out to be false or exaggerated -- appeared aimed at sowing fear and panic among local officials.

The government says it still controls the country.

"There's a propaganda war being fought here," said one diplomat, who asked not to be named.

Chad's government blamed Sudan for Monday's raid on the refugee camp, which it said caused damage and casualties.

The UNHCR's Conway said the agency had received no reports of civilian casualties.

"Sudan has decided to destabilise Chad with carefully planned terrorist strikes," Chad's Information Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said in a statement which described the rebels as "mercenaries in the pay of Sudan".

While Deby's government accuses Sudan, the rebel FUC and other anti-Deby groups say they will step up a military offensive to try to oust him before the May 3 presidential poll.

"Our objective is N'Djamena," Abdel Karim said.

Since last year, insurgent groups, their ranks swelled by army deserters, have been harrying Deby's forces from the east.

Diplomats say it remains to be seen whether they can push to N'Djamena before the elections. Rebel fighters killed the Chadian army commander, who was Deby's nephew, last month.

In May's election, Deby -- who won power in a 1990 military revolt from the east -- will face four candidates with links to his government.