Central African Republic - Crisis

Bangui 2016

According to UNICEF’s December update over 450,000 children are in acute need of protection and assistance in the CAR. Almost two-thirds of Bangui’s population are now in dozens of displacement sites across the capital; and across the country over 950,000 are displaced. As post-coup lawlessness took hold, the rebel alliance broke up into militia groups divided along religious and ethnic lines, while some rebels were assimilated into the national army. The melange of militias was further complicated by multinational forces from Central Africa (FOMAC) who were already carrying out peacekeeping duties in the CAR, an African Union peacekeeping force, which is in the process of expanding to 6,000, and a contingent of 1,600 recently arrived French soldiers. As the mainly young, male militias attack each other with anything from automatic guns to kitchen knives, and peacekeepers attempt to stop them, the former French colony’s population of five million people lives life on the edge, with the most vulnerable – the elderly, women and children – suffering most.