(NDJAMENA) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met grieving aid workers in Abeche, Chad's eastern city, Wednesday as part of a visit to inspect EU forces protecting Sudanese refugees from nearby Darfur.

All the aid workers wore black armbands as a mark of respect for their murdered colleague, French aid worker Pascal Marlinge, who was shot in an ambush last Thursday.

Marlinge worked for the group Save the Children.

Solana also met with Chadian Foreign Minister Moussa Faki, representatives of the UN office coordinating humanitarian affairs (OCHA) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the UN body's headquarters.

Solana is in the region principally to visit EU troops (EUFOR) operating in Chad and Central African Republic to protect displaced refugees from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan.

Some 30 aid workers "explained their problems, and their hopes" for this dangerous war-battered region. They also questioned Faki and Solana on their safety, one participant said, after the recent spate of aid-worker killings.

"We wanted to show Mr. Solana that we were in mourning," international NGO country representative for ACTED, Benoit Piot said at the start of the meeting. Chad's restive eastern region borders Sudan's vast and warring Darfur region, where refugee camps have also been set up to shelter displaced victims.

The EU chief thanked his audience for their "generosity" while Faki reassured them that Ndjamena would do everything to find the culprits.

International aid organisations travelling within Chad are often targets of armed bandits wanting to snatch their all-terrain vehicles.

In response to growing security risks throughout eastern Chad, UN agencies and NGOs suspended their humanitarian activities last Friday and Saturday.

This was in protest at "the deterioration of security in the east of the country after this murder," they explained.

"We must stop the actions of armed groups, perhaps with more patrols, presence or more means from EUROF or Chadian government forces," Piot suggested.

"Since January, three humanitarian workers and two Chadian refugee camp guards have died," he added, urging the security problem must be solved.

He did concede however, that "an overnight solution," was impossible.

Chad's leader Idriss Deby Itno was almost overthrown by armed rebels in early February. Since then he has invited several opposition members into his coalition government.

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