OCHA with the support of the humanitarian and development community have recently written a report on their work updating the estimations of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees in the CAR. The report includes the displacement figures and map, the methodology used for data collection, the complexities of tracking displacement in the CAR, an overview of the context and causes of displacement by region and recommendations for the humanitarian community as they move forward in tracking displacement. Download the full report here (PDF, 781 KB) >>

Download the map on our Maps page, or directly here >>

For more information, please contact:

Lauren Paletta
Information Management Officer UN OCHA
Bangui, Central African Republic
paletta@un.org

Amnesty International Press Release (20 Oct 2011)

Central African Republic: Civilians bear the brunt of decades of violence and abuses

Local and foreign armed groups in the CAR are still killing, abducting, torturing and raping civilians, as well as burning houses and looting property, Amnesty International said in a report released today.

The report Central African Republic – Action needed to end decades of abuse describes how CAR’s population has been terrorized for decades by armed groups who have been able to operate with virtual impunity.

Despite peace agreements and a fledgling Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process, armed conflict continues to ravage the country resulting in civilian deaths and mass internal displacement.

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Central African Republic: Humanitarian presence in the field (October 2011)

This map shows humanitarian actor’s sub-office and base locations in the field in the CAR. The map was produced by the OCHA office in Bangui with the generous support of the humanitarian community. Download the map in PDF (126KB) here: English version | Version française

Central African Republic: Areas of intervention per cluster (October 2011)

These maps show the areas of intervention of humanitarian projects in the CAR by cluster. The maps were produced by the cluster leads and co-leads with the generous support of the humanitarian community. Download the maps in PDF (655KB) here: English version | Version française

Find all map products for CAR from the HDPT community on the Maps pages of the HDPT CAR website http://hdptcar.net/blog/maps/. We hope that these products will be useful to your work.

Highlight

Announcement of final results of presidential election. The Constitutional Court validated the presidential election of last January and declared President Francois Bozize as the winner with 64,37%. In addition, the Court declared unfounded the queries from opposition candidates who called for the cancellation of these elections due to fraud, according to their own statement.

The two international staff from MSF who were kidnapped by rebels on January 30, 2011, have been released last week (February 20, 2011).

Working with partners

Implementing partners include the Government’s Commission Nationale pour les Réfugiés (CNR), CNPPDI and other relevant ministries, IRC, DRC, Triangle GH, IMC, Merlin, COOPI, CSSI and CARITAS. UNHCR chairs the Protection Cluster and works closely with the UN Country Team, national and international NGOs and donors, and participates in joint activities, like the provision of protection and assistance to IDPs in the North.

Achievements

• Protection meetings in Bangui last week reached following results: Gender Based Violence sub cluster met (February 8, 2011) with all relevant partners and adopted a common mechanism for monthly data collection, revised its ToR and proposed a chart that will contain all interventions, highlighting the gaps and avoid duplications. In addition, all partners involved in protection issues held a meeting (February 11, 2011) to boost the protection cluster. DRC has been appointed as co-lead of the cluster.
• Implementation of pilot documentation project aiming at delivering birth certificate and/or national identity cards to IDPs in Kaga Bandoro and Paoua to avoid statelessness and offer educational perspectives to young people. To date, 2000 birth certificates were distributed to people from Fah and Bamatara villages. The second step which includes delivering of identity cards is on the way.

Read more by downloading the full bulletin >>

For further details please contact:

UNHCR office in CAR
Mr. Djerassem Mbaiorem
Email: mbaiorem@unhcr.org | Phone: +236 21 61 32 80

Meeting basic needs in the most isolated corner of Africa

A whole day travelling: that’s the time in which a plane takes its passengers from one side of the world to the other, or how long it takes a family going on holiday in their car to cross a mid-sized country or a large American state. Even a cyclist can easily cover more than 100km (60 miles) in a day.

A truck carefully moves off a rudimentary ferry on the road
north of Bria, north-east CAR.

But in the remote north-east of the Central African Republic, the few Sudanese truckers who try to get their much-needed supplies through to these isolated towns and villages are lucky if they manage to cover 60km (36 miles) in that same day. And that’s during the dry season, when the sand has not turned to sludge and the countless streams are dry and easily forded. When it’s wet, the trucks simply disappear into the morass and wait, totally immobilised for months. There are no bridges – in fact, there is nothing that anyone could really describe as a road, whatever the optimistic twenty-year-old map might indicate. Just a narrow dirt or sand track fast disappearing in the undergrowth, winding its way northwards through the scrub forests for hundreds of kilometres.

The road south of Ouadda.

There are no other routes. This region is as far from the sea as it is possible to get in Africa – 1,600km (1,000 miles) as the crow flies – and in the dry savannah the rivers are far too small for cargo boats. The government has neither the means nor the capacity to govern here; they can provide no security, support or supplies, and have hardly done so for decades. The people who eke out an existence here have no other choice but to be totally self-sufficient, their only connection with the outside world those trucks that manage to get through a few times a year. The truckers, in addition to having to dig themselves out of the sand a few times a day, take the risk of being attacked and robbed by armed bandits who take advantage of the area’s remoteness. Last week, they struck six times within as many days along the only practicable road that leads from Bangui, the Central African Republic’s capital, to the north-eastern Vakaga region. With difficulties this big and the tiny profits available from the impoverished population, many truckers are giving up and no longer return.

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This mission to Sam Ouandja, north-eastern Central African Republic, was conducted to visit a camp providing shelter to almost 3,000 refugees from Daffak in Western Darfur, Sudan. The mission also visited local health centers and other projects.
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Below a small brief on the security situation in the first half of 2007, taken from the Mid-Year Review of aid operations in CAR.

This is a good first introduction to the rebellion in the north and other security problems in the Central African Republic.

For more info, please read the full Mid-Year Review of our Coordinated Aid Programme.

In late 2006 and early 2007, the UFDR militant group rose to prominence in the northeast of the CAR. Conflict has since spread from Birao to the town of Mouka in the south, and to Ndélé in the west. As a result, a rising number of civilians have been displaced. The villages of Ouanda- Djallé, Gordil and Tiringoulou were particularly badly affected by the violence. Continue Reading »

Map days continue at www.hdptcar.net.

This focus map shows CAR and the region around Sam Ouandja, where aid agencies are assissting the refugees from Darfur. We had posted a summary a few days back.

CAR’s east is only sparsely populated. Slave traders had emptied most of the region during the 19th century.

Click here to download a PDF version

Click here to download a PNG version

More than 2,600 refugees have arrived in Sam Ouandja, in the extreme north-east of the Central African Republic, since late May this year.

The organizations providing humanitarian assistance to these refugees and the population of Sam Ouandja have now put together a briefing kit, with updates on the situation and their activities.

For photos please see our photo sets.

Download the document here

August Briefing Kit | Darfur refugees in CAR | HDPT CAR | English

August Briefing Kit | Darfur refugees in CAR | HDPT CAR | French

Or read the full text after the break. Continue Reading »