The fourth and final cargo plane taking equipment to Irish troops in Chad is to be loaded at Dublin airport this evening.
The plane is due in the capital, N'Djamena, overnight on Saturday.
Fifty members of the specialist army ranger wing arrived in Chad over a week ago. Since then a huge Antonov aircraft has made three flights bringing vehicles, supplies and weapons to N'Djamena.
Over the past week, some of the troops have made the 960km overland journey from the capital to their temporary base at Abache. This manoeuvre takes between 24 and 36 hours.
An army spokesman said the troops are happy that they are being well received by locals along the route.
The remaining troops are staying at a camp beside the airport at N'Djamena, and will travel to Abache when all the equipment has arrived.
Next week, the rangers will start reconnaissance missions in the area assigned to them. They will also seek to identify suitable locations for camps to accomodate the main body of 400 Irish soldiers who will fly out between mid-March and mid-May.
The Irish soldiers are serving as part of a 3,700-strong EU peacekeeping force to protect the refugees and help preserve stability in Chad.
Refugees continue to arrive
The United Nations refugee agency has said that 3,000 refugees from Darfur arrived in Chad in the last week, bringing the total number to over 13,000 in February alone.
The new arrivals in the Birak area are scattered among 11 locations around Birak and surrounding villages.
Chad has seen a steady flow of refugees arriving from Darfur since the Sudanese army and its Janjaweed militia allies launched heavy bombardments and aerial attacks on rebel strongholds around the Jebel Moon area on 8 February.
Chad has so far refused to allow the UNHCR to move the newly-arrived refugees to existing camps in the country.
Chad has already taken in more than 240,000 refugees from Darfur, and the country's Prime Minister Delwa Kassire Coumakoye said earlier this month that the fresh influx was ‘harmful for our people’.
Almost 10,000 new refugees have also poured into the south of the country from the Central African Republic, the UNHCR said.
This influx takes the total numbers of Central African Republic refugees to around 53,000.
