Everyone a Refugee in C.African Ghost Town
Not a single window pane remains at Bossangoa town hall, in the Central African northwest. Papers litter the floor and a brass band trumpet lies dumped in a sink, a desolate scene that sums up the ghost town it has become.
Bossangoa lies 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital Bangui, where lawmakers are due Monday to elect a new interim president in a bid to stem the deadly sectarian unrest engulfing the country.
Large-scale violence between Christians and Muslims has been raging in the town since September, part of nationwide unrest that has prompted the United Nations to warn of genocide.
Today, there is little sign of life on the streets of Bossangoa.
"No state, no administration, no judges, nobody," summed up the local bishop Monsignor Nestor Desire Nongo Aziagbia.
Lone relics from everyday life are scattered here and there, like a poster for Literacy Day, 2011.
The prefect, the mayor and their staff are long gone. The dozen or so police and gendarmes who remain live in fear like the rest of the population, powerless to stop the looters who roam the town unchecked.
"In any case, there is no jail left," said the bishop.
Bossangoa's people have been herded into two refugee camps -- one for Christians, near the Church, the other for Muslims, near a school.
Together they house some 35,000 people, almost the entire population.
Between the two sides, who once lived peacefully as neighbors, all that remains is suspicion.
That, and the infernal cycle of "rumors that feed people's fear and lead to violence," said General Francisco Soriano, the head of the 1,600-strong French operation in CAR, during a visit to Bossangoa this week.
All here agree that the 100-odd French soldiers based in the town since December, in a former cotton factory, alongside a contingent of African peacekeepers, have done much to prevent further bloodletting.
"The situation has gone from red alert to orange," said one French officer.
'Living rough in the outback'
Former fighters from the Muslim Seleka rebellion -- who had ruled the country since toppling the regime of Francois Bozize last March -- have been successfully confined to barracks in the area, around 60 of them in total.
The Christian militias -- set up here like elsewhere in response to atrocities blamed on the ex-Seleka -- have scaled down their activities in response. There has been no deadly attack in the area in two weeks.
But it will take more than that to persuade people to return home.
"I don't feel at ease. I don't dare go home," said Justin Andet, a 48-year-old man living in the Christian camp. "The Seleka, the Muslims, they know how to sneak in to our homes."
Andet's manioc crop has been totally destroyed by the fighting.
"In my life, right now I do nothing, nothing, nothing," he sighed.
Since the outbreak of the crisis, the bishop Aziagbia and the local imam Ismail Nafi have been trying to contain the violence and build bridges between their communities.
It is no easy task.
"We have meetings, bringing all of us together. But each time the attacks have carried on," said the imam.
According to Salima Mokrani of the UN's humanitarian office OCHA, Bossangoa has been spared the worst, compared to the situation in the countryside.
"Across the region, people have fled their homes and have been living rough in the outback for months," she said.
"They have run out of everything, down to the very last of their provisions. It is a disaster."
With the country heading into yet another period of political uncertainty -- as a new interim president is elected to replace the Muslim Michel Djotodia who stepped down under international pressure -- French troops here are on high alert.
Former troops who remain loyal to the Christian Bozize -- who come from the Bossangoa region -- still hold positions 60 kilometers to the north
"They are armed for war. And we risk running into trouble with them," warned one military source.
Source: Agence France Presse
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