BANGUI (Reuters) – Hundreds of people tried to flee inter-religious violence in Central African Republic on Saturday aboard emergency flights to neighbouring Chad, while nearby countries appealed for help to rescue their citizens from the mounting humanitarian crisis. Tit-for-tat violence between Muslim Seleka rebels, who seized power in March, and Christian self-defence militias have killed more than 1,000 people this month in the riverside capital Bangui and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
Fighting in the former French colony has surged in recent weeks despite the presence of 1,600 French peacekeepers and nearly 4,000 African Union troops deployed under a UN mandate to protect civilians. Bangui was calm yesterday.
The ‘anti-balaka’ militia have targeted Muslims they say have supported Seleka during months of looting and killing since March. With many Seleka gunmen coming from Chad, its citizens in particular have been singled out, prompting their government to charter flights this week to bring them home.
However, many of those who waited in the heat at Bangui airport were Muslim Central Africans who said they were fleeing their majority-Christian homeland for fear of reprisals.
“We have never known violence as barbaric as this,” said Aishatou Abdelkarim, 31, who said she was married to a Chadian. “The devil has taken control of our country.” Chad’s Foreign Minister Moussa Faki said some 4,000 Chadians had been transported home so far, many of whom had lived in Central African Republic their whole lives. That is just a fraction, however, of the hundreds of thousands of Chadians living in landlocked Central African Republic.
More than 800,000 people have fled their homes during this month’s fighting, with about half of them seeking refuge in Bangui, the United Nations says. It appealed on Friday for $152 million to help meet emergency humanitarian needs such as drinking water and sanitation in makeshift camps.
