It is a hot afternoon in Bouar – the sun is blazing down over the houses on the hill slopes that make up CAR’s third largest town. We are on a United Nations inter-agency mission in western CAR, near the border with Cameroon and right on the trading route which connects the landlocked capital Bangui with the Douala port in the neighbouring country. The objective is to assess the humanitarian situation in what was once one of the wealthier areas in CAR: indeed, a healthy cotton industry and a steady stream of visitors made it one of the country’s main economic hubs.
Today, the situation has changed. The cotton industry has collapsed and the stream of visitors has been reduced to a trickle. Indeed, the majority of people arriving in Bouar today are internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing violence and harassment at the hands of road bandits. These criminal groups, called zaraguinas by the local population, control many of the roads between the main cities in this part of the country. A mix of Central Africans, Chadians, and other nationalities, some of the zaraguinas were reportedly part of the foreign forces that helped CAR’s President Bozizé take power in 2003, and who would since then have resorted to terrorising the population for a living. Others are Central Africans taking advantage of the climate of near-total impunity reigning in the area. In both cases, the zaraguinas’ violent methods, including kidnappings for ransom and summary executions, breed fear and are causing a massive displacement of the local population.
A large part of the 2,000 IDPs who are reportedly living in Bouar today are Peuhl, an ethnic group of nomadic cattle herders whose trade and animals have traditionally injected much needed cash in the region’s economy. This is the group most targeted by the zaraguinas – countless Peuhl families have lost all their possessions, including their cattle, in brutal attacks. In a dusty backyard in Quartier Haussa, at the outskirt of Bouar, we meet one of these many families.
Roudaïa, 29 years old, is squatting on a mat next to a small coal fire, surrounded by several other women and with a score of children bustling around her. The absence of any adult men is noticeable and the kids, dressed in colourful scarves and with artfully modelled tresses, are beautiful but dirty, and strikingly thin. This extended family arrived in Bouar some 9 months ago, after zaraguinas had repeatedly attacked their village. One of the elder women in the group tells us that the first time the zaraguinas came, the men in the village fought back but could not prevent them from stealing all the cattle. Many were hurt in the fighting, and so the second time the zaraguinas came the villagers did not wait to see what would happen, but packed up whatever they could carry and fled deep into the bush. Without food, they walked the 70 km to the town of Bozoum, where some 11,000 IDPs have sought refuge over the course of the past 12 months. Still feeling under threat, the family managed to continue to Bouar, where they say they feel safer and would like to stay.
Roudaïa is holding a small boy in her arms. Throughout our conversation, and despite all the hustle and bustle around him, 1-year-old Amadou remains perfectly still. He looks seriously ill. As members of our team have a look to see what might be wrong with him, Roudaïa tells us her story.
Amadou is her sister Ndjenabou’s son, the youngest of five left in their aunt’s care when their mother died some six months ago. The circumstances around Ndjenabou’s death are blurred. Roudaïa explains that she fell ill after they had reached Bouar, and that she went into the bush to die. What is clear, however, is that Roudaïa, who has no means of income in her new hometown, is now responsible for feeding and raising seven young children. Finding food, she tells us, is her foremost concern. WFP is handing out some food rations to the displaced but they are not enough to feed all of the children and they do not solve the underlying problem: that most Peuhl families have not found any economic activity to replace their cattle breeding and are therefore economically dependent on the already scarce resources of the host community.
As we continue deeper into the neighbourhood, a throng of children follow us around. Most of these children do not go to school – the yearly fees of some 4 dollars prohibit their parents from enrolling them. That, together with the illnesses, malnutrition, and violence that these children have been exposed to is the stark consequence of the wave of criminality and insecurity sweeping across western CAR, depriving people of their savings and livelihoods.
For the Peuhl, an entire generation risks being lost – detached from their parent’s nomadic lifestyle, and excluded from the benefits of life in the cities these children are stuck in-between different ways of life, and are paying a high price for the government of CAR’s incapacity to address the rampant banditry in these parts of the country. If that does not change, and if CAR’s authorities do not get help from international organisations to provide the displaced with the basic services they need, it will soon become apparent that the violence Roudaïa and her family sought refuge from when arriving in Bouar has only been traded for another kind of suffering. This kind – crippling poverty – is perhaps endurable for a longer time, but hardly less crippling for the family’s future, or for the future of CAR.
For more information contact:
Amanda Weyler
UNDP, Bangui
amanda.weyler@undp.org
