CAR conflict displaced over 200,000 in two months: UN
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has voiced concern about escalating violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) following disputed election in December last year , saying the unrest has displaced over 200,000 people in less than two months.
UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov told reporters in Geneva on Friday that nearly 92,000 refugees had crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), while more than 13,000 had fled to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and the Republic of the Congo.
The rest remain internally displaced within CAR, according to figures compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), he added.
“Refugees have told UNHCR that they fled in panic when they heard gunshots, leaving their belongings behind,” Cheshirkov said.
The spokesman also noted that most of the refugees were living in dire conditions in remote, hard-to-reach areas, close to rivers, without basic shelter, and facing acute food shortages.
“Refugees urgently need food and shelter, drinking water, essential aid items, sanitation, and healthcare to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases,” he said. “Unfortunately, the host communities in these remote areas have extremely limited resources.”
Back in November 2020, six armed groups, controlling two-thirds of the CAR altogether, announced an alliance against the central government ahead of the presidential election.
After the election in December 2020, which saw President Faustin Archange Touadera winning with almost 54 percent of the votes, fighting continued in towns nationwide.
The armed groups in the CAR had earlier accused Touadera’s government of seeking to fix the election and warned of a violent response.
The election — the first since a fragile peace deal was reached between the government and rebels in February 2019 — came amid a series of attacks in the run-up to the material-rich African country’s elections as well as bomb threats against polling stations.
The United Nations (UN) and Touadera accuse former president Francois Bozize of leading the armed groups.
The African country, with a population of 4.7 million, has endured waves of violence since 2013, which have killed thousands of people and forced more than a million from their homes.
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