30 000 flee homes as fighting returns to CAR
OUTSIDE Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic (CAR), the country is back in open and increasingly fractured warfare, with even more areas affected recently, such as Paoua in the north-west of the country, where Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has been working since 2006.
Members of Revolution and Justice (RJ) and fighters belonging to the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African Republic People (MNLC) have been engaged in violent clashes since December 27 last year.
About 30 000 people, who had fled the fighting to take refuge in the town of Paoua, tell of torched villages and indiscriminate attacks on anyone found in the zone. The situation remains extremely tense.
Since the beginning of the clashes, the MSF team in the Paoua hospital has treated 13 victims. Given that 30 000 people fled the fighting, it’s concerning for MSF doctors that only a few people have managed to seek medical assistance.
“This is very little, taking into account the number of displaced people who reached Paoua and the extreme violence they report to our teams.
“Many tell of men on horseback shooting at anything that moves, of dead and wounded people left behind in the bush,” said Gwenola François, MSF’s mission head in CAR.
“We are very concerned by the situation there.”
A 33-year-old farmer, Léonard Gangbe, was one of the wounded who made it to Paoua. When the fighting broke out, he and several neighbours fled their village to a house in the forest.
While trying to stop armed men stealing cattle he had taken with him, he was shot in the cheek and the bullet tore through his nose and top lip.
Because of the fighting, MSF has been forced to suspend its work in seven health centres in outlying districts of Paoua.