C.A.R. or I.D.P. (2015)

The Central African Republic is an extremely unstable country in which conflict, interventions and coups d’état have taken place regularly over the last fifty years.
The violence broke out in December 2012 when the rebel coalition Seleka staged a coup d’état in the capital, Bangui. As a consequence, the then president, François Bozizé, fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Michel Djotodia was proclaimed the new president at that moment. Anti Balaka militias were formed in response to the attacks of the Seleka militias and since then violence has become an established part of the population’s daily life.
Over 410,000 are internally displaced people, and about 471,000 people have fled over the last year to seek refuge in neighbouring countries such as southern Chad, Cameroon, DR Congo and the Republic of Congo. All of them have fled to safer villages. Some hosting communities have seen their populations triple in a very short space of time, leading to a shortage of food, which was already in short supply before the arrival of the displaced people. The violence has prevented farmers from cultivating their fields and now the harvests are insufficient. Food prices have increased and many families can only manage to eat once a day.
At the moment, 2.7 million people – or more than half of the population – within the country need humanitarian assistance.
The conflict continues to pose a threat to the lives of civilians and the people living in the camps are in desperate need of drinking water and sanitation.