Central African Republic – Escalating Crisis – Conflict – Rights Abuses – Women & Children
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: July 22, 2005
WUNRN
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC –
ESCALATING CRISIS – CONFLICT – RIGHTS ABUSES – SERIOUS HUMANITARIAN NEEDS
– WOMEN & CHILDREN
Residents of Bangui came out to see Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon when he
visited the Central
African Republic on 5 April 2014. UN Photo/Samir Afridi
WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME CHIEF CITES
DIRE NEEDS IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
10 April 2014 – Racing against time and bad weather, prodding fickle donors
and an indifferent general public, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is working on all fronts to support
millions of desperate people in the Central African Republic (CAR) and to keep
international attention focused on the escalating crisis.
The conflict in the CAR, where a 2012 rebel-led coup has given way to
vicious Muslim vs. Christian reprisal attacks and massive human rights
violations, has all the grim hallmarks of the world’s other crisis hotspots –
Syria, where what began as anti-Government protests has, over the past three
years, devolved into a civil war that shows no signs of stopping; and South
Sudan, where a political rivalry exploded into full-scale conflict this past
December, devastating the world’s youngest country.
We
are entering a very challenging period where people will be dependent on the
international community for assistance and could potentially not receive that
support. We cannot let that happen. If we do, it will result in children who
are already potentially malnourished, becoming severely malnourished. And women
who need our support for food would go hungry. We could see a situation where
we go quickly from food insecurity to severe hunger.
For all the needs in CAR, and they are enormous – the country’s economy has been
wrecked, thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been
displaced, and 2.2 million, about half the population, require some form of
humanitarian aid – the dire situation has failed to grab the media headlines or
generate much enduring public interest.
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SECURITY COUNCIL ESTABLISHES UN
PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Deeply concerned about the deteriorating security situation and ongoing
human rights abuses in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Security Council
today approved the establishment of a nearly 12,000-strong United Nations
peacekeeping operation to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access
in the war-torn country.
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Central
African Republic – Chadians Continue to Flee CAR, Often Destitute
for Migration – has registered and tracked over 95,000 often destitute Chadian
returnees, Central African nationals and other Third Country Nationals (TCNs)
arriving in Chad from the Central African Republic (CAR).
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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC – UNCERTAIN
FATE OF REFUGEES FLEEING CONFLICT – WOMEN & CHILDREN
By Mirabelle Enaka Kima, IFRC – Red Cross
February 5m 2014 – Thousands of men, women, and children, jam-packed into
freight trucks and covered in dust arrive in east Cameroon, fleeing the raging
violence that has terrorized the Central African Republic (CAR) since December.
Driven from their villages and deprived of all their property, these
families arrive in Cameroon with some hurriedly assembled clothes and pots.
According to the Cameroon Red Cross, about 9,000 refugees are currently in
border villages. Most of them sleep in the open, where they are exposed to
severe cold and mosquito bites. About 800 are living in a church in
Garoua-Boulai, where they sleep on the bare floor in the modest guest home of
the parish. “They need food, shelter, mats, blankets and latrines,” says Father
Kevin, the parish priest. “We do not have the logistics and financial resources
to meet the most immediate needs of these people who have lost everything.”
To survive, women and children have to beg from the locals
who, despite their modest incomes, generously provide a few kilograms of rice
and fish. “We survive thanks to the generosity of the people who give us a
little food to feed our children,” says Adawiya Ali Fadel, who fled the
violence. “Our husbands were forced to stay back due to lack of transport fare.
We have been abandoned to our fate and can no longer work to support our
families.”
Difficult access to safe water and limited sanitation facilities
expose both refugees and host communities to the risk of hygiene-related
diseases. Access to health care for sick and pregnant women is also a major
problem for these refugees who are already weakened by malaria, the leading
cause of mortality in the Central African Republic. “I am seven months pregnant
and so far, I have had no antenatal care,” says 17 year old Issa Nathalie, from
Bouar. “Our village was looted, my father killed in the fighting, while my
mother and I arrived here some weeks ago. She is very sick and we have no money
for treatment.”
The Cameroon Red Cross has deployed a large number of volunteers to provide
first aid to the refugees. “Our volunteers work alongside the UN High
Commission for Refugees to register new arrivals. We also provide psychosocial
support to the most vulnerable,” says Faustin Tsimi, Disaster Management
Coordinator. “With the support of the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), we started an assessment to identify the most
urgent needs of these vulnerable people.”
In September 2013, IFRC issued an emergency appeal that enabled the Cameroon
Red Cross Society to assist 3,200 CAR refugees in Guiwa Yangamo and Bétaré-Oya
through the distribution of non-food items, psychosocial support and access to
safe water and sanitation. Today, with the growing number of new refugees in
the region, the needs have tripled. An assessment is now underway to improve
assistance to thousands more of these new arrivals.
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Categories: Releases