WUNRN
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC -
ESCALATING CRISIS - CONFLICT - RIGHTS ABUSES - SERIOUS HUMANITARIAN NEEDS
- WOMEN & CHILDREN
Residents of
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
April ll, 2014 - Since late December 2013 IOM - International Organization 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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