UNHCR said on 29 September that 319,000 refugees in Chad face delays in registration, leaving them without documentation needed to access services and exposed to greater risk of detention. Dominique Hyde, the agency's Director of External Relations, delivered the warning to journalists in Geneva, as part of a new UNHCR report, 'Protection Eroded: The Human Cost of Underfunding.' UN News Anadolu Ajansı
UNHCR says up to 200,000 women and girls in Chad risk losing access to safe spaces and gender-based-violence prevention programmes, while around 233,000 children could lose child-protection services. Livelihoods, vocational training and business-development support are at risk for nearly 400,000 refugees and host-community members. Anadolu Ajansı
The shortfall is part of a global collapse in UNHCR funding, which fell from $5.2 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion in 2025; by end-July 2026 the agency had received only 32% of the $8.5 billion it says it needs this year. The agency has already cut its global workforce by a third, closed 140 offices, and identified $135 million in efficiency savings. Channels TV UN News
The new registration-delay figure sits alongside, and appears distinct from, Chad's broader 2026 Humanitarian Response Plan, which requires $986 million and was roughly 41% funded as of the latest tracking, covering 3.4 million of 4.5 million people in need. It remains unclear whether the 319,000 figure reflects fresh deterioration since an April 2026 warning — when UNHCR and the World Food Programme said more than a million Sudanese refugees in Chad faced life-threatening cuts due to a $428 million shortfall — or is a restated subset of that same caseload. OCHA
No confirmed new donor pledges directly responding to Hyde's briefing had surfaced in available reporting at time of writing; existing government commitments predate the warning. UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi has previously described this year's funding cuts as 'neither necessary nor inevitable,' a remark made when the agency announced early 2026 donor pledges in December 2025 rather than at this week's briefing. What to watch: whether donor governments respond with fresh flexible funding before further service suspensions, and which specific Chad programmes are cut next.