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Thousands displaced after fire destroys camp in CAR
BANGUI, Central African Republic, June 19, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Around 8,500
people have been expelled from their makeshift camp in Bambari in the Central
African Republic after a fire destroyed it and renewed fighting broke out in
the region, Doctors Without Borders said on Friday.
“Several thousand people have sought refuge in the compound of a mosque in
Bambari town where they are living in very precarious conditions,” the non-
governmental organisation known under its French acronym, MSF, said in a
statement.
The Elevage camp, situated at around 380 kilometres (240 miles) north east
of Bangui, “was burnt to the ground and a health post run by MSF in the camp
was also destroyed”, the statement said.
Elevage camp was born out of the brutal conflict that ravaged the CAR in
2013-14, MSF said.
Located on the outskirts of Bambari, the country’s fourth-largest city,
people from mostly semi-nomadic communities sought refuge there after fleeing
fighting in various areas.
“In subsequent years, as periods of violence alternated with calmer
phases, the site began to resemble a small town, with six mosques and
hundreds of shops, tents and other structures set up by the 8,500 people who
lived there,” MSF said.
CAR is the second least-developed country in the world according to the UN
and suffers from the aftermath of a brutal civil conflict that erupted in
2013.
President Faustin Archange Touadera was re-elected in December on a
turnout of fewer than one in three voters.
The ballot was hampered by armed groups that at the time controlled around
two-thirds of the country, and rebels mounted an offensive in the runup to
polling day.
Since then, the army, backed by UN peacekeepers, Rwandan special forces
and Russian paramilitaries, has wrested much of the territory from rebel
control.
According to one camp resident, named in MSF’s statement as Mahmoud,
conditions in the mosque compound where people had taken refuge “are
deplorable. We sleep on the ground, with no shelter, mat or mosquito net.
There is no food, no latrines and not enough clean water.”
MSF gave no indication about the possible cause of the blaze, but said
that clashes had taken place on June 4 between government forces and non-
state armed groups in the camp’s vicinity.
“The following day, soldiers entered the camp, according to accounts from
former residents. On June 6, billowing smoke could be seen from the direction
of the camp.
“It is urgent that more latrines are built, and that people have access to
food and drinking water,” said Rhian Gastineau, MSF’s head of mission in CAR.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1405hrs