Humanitarian Crisis Looms for C. Africa as Thousands Displaced
A humanitarian crisis loomed Thursday over the Central African Republic as tens of thousands sought refuge in makeshift camps around the capital Bangui following a wave of massacres.
Sectarian violence that claimed at least 400 lives in Bangui last week had abated following the weekend arrival of a 1,600-strong French intervention force, but many were still afraid to return to their homes.
Aid workers said only a fraction of Bangui's estimated 800,000 residents remained in the city, with many living rough near a French military base and in other areas considered more safe.
The focus is shifting to conditions in the makeshift camps, with humanitarian workers raising fears of cholera and other diseases spreading.
Aid groups said at least 45,000 people had sheltered around the city's international airport, where French soldiers have maintained a base since 2002.
"We are seeking refuge but there is no water and no food," said a man who had fled from the neighboring Boeing district where the former Seleka rebels had gone on the rampage, killing and looting with impunity.
Aid officials fear that epidemics could spread easily. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has set up a mobile clinic capable of carrying out up to 300 consultations a day.
There are only two points to access water at the camp near the airport and both have been set up by the Red Cross.
To make matters worse, U.N. aid agencies have not delivered any food supplies to the camp for the last week, a humanitarian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Muslim-majority PK district in downtown Bangui was largely empty, with most residents having fled their homes to escape reprisal attacks by Christian vigilante groups.
France sent in troops to CAR in what President Francois Hollande said was a bid to prevent "carnage".
It was France's second military intervention in Africa this year after a campaign to quell Islamists and Tuareg rebels in Mali.
Two soldiers from an elite French regiment died in a fierce gunbattle on Monday and there has been opposition criticism at home over the cost of the operation at a time when the country is facing economic hardship.
Although other Western countries have praised France for taking the lead in buttressing a 2,600-strong African peacekeeping mission in CAR, none has pitched in with additional troops on the ground.
Former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, who founded MSF, denounced other European countries for not following Paris's lead.
"I am proud of my country," he told French television, adding that the French campaign had "prevented a massacre".
"One thing troubles me greatly and that is the absence of Europe," he said, accusing leaders of other European countries of "scandalous cowardliness".
Air France meanwhile resumed flights from Paris to Bangui on Thursday, after having halted them on Tuesday following the death of the two French soldiers.
"Security conditions permit us to resume service to Bangui," a spokesman told AFP, adding that the usual weekly Tuesday flight would be restored.
The relatively calm situation in Bangui was in sharp contrast to Monday and Tuesday, when rampaging locals pillaged shops owned by Muslims. The scale of any violence outside the capital remains unclear.
French officers say the vast majority of the armed groups who had brought terror to Bangui were disarmed within 24 hours of the intervention force arriving.
Having initially presented operation Sangaris as essentially a humanitarian mission, French officials have in recent days expanded its goals to disarming all armed groups in the country and creating the conditions for free and fair elections.
