Two YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS) teams doing missions work in Sarh, Chad, were evacuated on Friday by a Missionary Aviation Fellowship pilot after Chadian rebels reached the capital city N'djamena before being forced out last week. Although the situation in Sarh was never critical, the presence of foreign nationals inside Chad became intolerable and YWAM leaders in Perth, Australia and Herrnhut, Germany decided to pull out short-term teams working with a permanent YWAM team in Sarh. Parental concerns also led to the decision to pull the teams out. No one was hurt and all were evacuated to neighboring Cameroon. Until the time of their unexpected departure the teams had been enjoying a very positive time of evangelism ministry working among Sudanese refugees in Sarh.

"All our efforts have been to see that all on both teams were evacuated," said Moses Kariuki, YWAM Sarh Director. "It hasn't been easy. We are happy they can be in a more secure location."

The outreach phase for these DTS students is not due to finish until March 17. The Herrnhut team plans to travel to Ethiopia to completetheir outreach there. The permanent YWAM Sarh team has no plans to evacuate, as they are serving in an area of Chad that is relatively stable. They just began their own six-month Discipleship Training School on February 4 and current plans are to continue running the school, which focuses on Christian character development and preparing the Christian messenger for missionary service. 560km away from Sarh, Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, has been in a volatile state. In early February rebels launched a major assault, briefly seizing control of large parts of the city before being pushed back. The rebels who attacked N'Djamena are a new alliance of three main groups, who joined forces just two months ago. The rebels, as well as President Idriss Deby's political opponents, say that his rule has been both violent and corrupt. They accuse him of favoring members of his Zagawa clan, who make up less than 3% of Chad's population, above other citizens.

If insecurity continues in the north of the country, getting in supplies will become increasingly difficult, and a security vacuum could put aid workers and the displaced at risk. In the long term, because the Darfur crisis is intimately linked to Chad-Sudan relations, the outlook is uncertain.