Crowded airport camp mirrors realities of Central African Republic conflict
100,000 people fled their homes and are crammed into a vast tent city in Bangui
In the mist and pale light of dawn, the makeshift camp near Bangui’s airport was waking up. Between the hulks of ruined civilian planes, thousands of displaced people prepared for another tough day.
Some 100,000 people who had fled their homes are crammed into a vast tent city near the bases of foreign soldiers at the airport — a microcosm of the conflict wracking the Central African Republic.
A relief worker points out that like in the country as a whole, there is a Christian majority and a fearful Muslim minority at the camp, along with sporadic clashes and signs of a humanitarian crisis.
The landlocked country descended into crisis after a coup in March last year by a rebel coalition called the Seleka, who then installed their leader Michel Djotodia as the country’s first Muslim president.
Djotodia later ordered them to disband, but has proved unable to control the fighters who went on killing, raping and pillaging, prompting Christians to form vigilante groups in response.
Nearly a million people have been displaced since the coup, and more than 1,000 killed in the past month alone.
Beside the runway where a huge Antonov cargo aircraft with UN supplies thundered in to land, displaced residents say they mostly fled the capital Bangui because of the violence pitting Muslim former rebels against Christian militias in a deadly cycle of revenge attacks.
They have brought the overcrowded camp to bustling life, with small shops selling whatever basic produce is available, telephones and other goods, while hairdressers have opened their stalls.
“I have been trying to sell stuff for a week,” Ernest says behind his meagre display of goods. “But we are looking for food. We fled a war. There’s no money, nothing to eat.”
Many people never leave the makeshift camp for the capital, fearing attacks.
One camp resident Vivien, 27, told AFP that she makes return trips to her home in Bangui to retrieve whatever she can, “when there’s no shooting”.
The tension in the airport camp runs as high as on the streets of Bangui. An elderly woman, Louise, said that “if we want to share out our food, young men armed with machetes come to take away all that the aid workers give. This is wrong.”