France on Saturday flew a planeload of United Nations aid into eastern Chad where French soldiers prepared to deploy from their base in Abeche towards the border with Sudan's Darfur region.
French troops in fatigues loaded metal containers and cardboard boxes containing radio equipment and humanitarian supplies onto two white UN trucks parked in Abeche under a baking sun and clear blue skies.
France's ambassador to Chad told a news conference in the capital N'Djamena that 200 soldiers would deploy to the frontier with Sudan to help the aid effort and watch out for incursions from Darfur by Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed.
"The presence of 200 French soldiers should contribute to the stability and security for the people who are have settled in the country," Ambassador Jean-Pierre Bercot said on Saturday.
"We want to demonstrate we will be there to bear witness for the rest of the world to incursions by the Janjaweed," he said.
Some 180,000 people have fled fighting in Darfur and a million more are displaced inside western Sudan.
Aid groups estimate as many as 450,000 are within 100km of the border to Chad and could easily end up there. The UN Security Council voted on Friday for a resolution threatening to clamp sanctions on Sudan in 30 days if it does not disarm and prosecute the marauding militia in Darfur.
Sudan initially rejected the move as "misguided" but later said it would try to comply.
Darfur rebels accuse the government of arming the Janjaweed to loot and burn African villages. Sudan denies this and says it is improving security and distribution.
Major Patrick Ponzoni, commander of the base in Abeche where some 150 French soldiers are stationed, said about 40 would head off on a reconnaissance mission yesterday to make contact with aid groups, local communities and refugees camped near Sudan.
The French troops will also provide logistical help to an African Union observer team due to deploy in the area.
The French flight on Saturday was the first of a series of rotations from the capital and comes just a day after President Jacques Chirac called on French soldiers stationed in their former central African colony to mobilize.
Aid workers in Abeche, who are fighting to get supplies out to the camps down bumpy, dirt roads, often made impassable by flooded riverbeds, were grateful for the French help.
"This has saved us easily, I would say, between two to three weeks of travel time overland through the desert," said Craig Sanders, coordinator of emergency operations in eastern Chad for the UN's refugee agency.
"Anything that will get us material out here and save us time is appreciated," he said.
However some aid workers in the town said it was frustrating that France, with a military base on their doorstep, had not provided more logistical support earlier in the crisis.
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