PRESS CONFERENCE on Humanitarian Situation in central african republic

 

An increasingly grim security situation in northern Central African Republic threatened the progress made since elections in 2005, Toby Lanzer, United Nations Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in that country, said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

He said that, while things were looking up -– a President and Government were in place; technocrats were returning to help their country; and there were improved macroeconomic indicators, including gross domestic product growth of 2.2 per cent in 2005 and 3.2 per cent in 2006 -– conflict in the north had affected about a million people, 750,000 of them directly.  More than 150,000 Central Africans had been internally displaced; 50,000 more had fled north into Chad; and 30,000 been forced westward into Cameroon.

The International Monetary Fund was re-engaging for the first time in six years, the World Bank was about to pump $100 million into the country; and the African Development Bank was also returning, he said.  The United States planned to build a new embassy in Bangui, the capital, with considerable associated investment; China’s Foreign Minister had just completed a visit; and important donor countries had voiced interest in the Central African Republic.  Yet all that was threatened by the violence in the north, which was unlike that previously seen in the country.  It was unusual, for instance, for houses to be burned and villages torched as had been happening for the past 12 months.  The perpetrators were “men in uniform” whose identity and nationality were unclear.

In addition, the preliminary results of a recent survey revealed that gender-based violence affected 38 per cent of women in the Central African Republic, particularly in the north.  Of those victims, 40 per cent had been stigmatized and one third banned from their communities entirely.  There was also an “astonishing and deeply, deeply worrying” maternal mortality rate of 1,355 per 100,000 -- twice as high as that of Sudan, the Central African Republic’s north-eastern neighbour.

Faced with that situation, the United Nations had become increasingly active, he said, noting that he had himself travelled to northern Central African towns previously occupied by militants during October and November.  It was a daunting task to get assistance to the affected people, given the absence of paved roads in the north.  It took a full day to get to the first affected villages in the north-west and four days to get to the north-east.  However, a considerable number of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations had been sent to the north today to see what was happening.  They included the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the non-governmental organization Caritas.

He said a modest humanitarian appeal for the Central African Republic sought $50 million, the second smallest United Nations aid appeal.  It aimed to provide emergency assistance programmes in food, water and sanitation, health as well as seeds and tools to up to one million people.  Tomorrow, an important meeting with the donor community in Geneva would look at ways to provide aid to the Central African Republic and other crisis-affected countries.

Asked what was being done to help displaced persons with nothing to eat following attacks, he said that, while operations had been suspended in the immediate wake of such attacks, there were ongoing programmes that had been started by the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

He said the response to a previous appeal for 2006 had been better than any previous one but still “very, very, very weak”, adding that he was working actively to get with donors like Sweden, Ireland, Germany, France, the European Commission, Denmark, the United States, United Kingdom, Finland, Norway and Denmark to get them engaged in what was happening in the Central African Republic.  One difficulty was that the country was squeezed between Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad, which tended to get much more attention.

Questioned about the number of people at risk, he said another 150,000 people could easily be internally displaced.  Such populations were very widely dispersed and finding them sometimes involved stopping in villages and walking into the bush to look for them.

In response to another question, he said the appeal for the Central African Republic had received $184,000 from the Central Emergency Response Fund.  One of the difficulties of raising money in situ was the dearth of foreign embassies in Bangui, given that only China, France and the Russian Federation were represented there.

Regarding the possibility of establishing camps for internally displaced persons, he said a number of different options had been examined, but camps tended to be a last resort.

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For information media • not an official record