Central African Republic
Recovery from coup attempt in Central African Republic slow

afrol News, 1 August - The violent coup attempt on 28 May in the Central African Republic still has serious consequences in the poor country. Although fighting ceased long time ago, still some 25,000 refugees are hiding out in neighbouring Congo Kinshasa. New international resources to alleviate the situation are not arriving.

Zongo - a town in Congo Kinshasa (DRC) located across the Oubangui river border from the Central African capital, Bangui - currently hosts an estimated 15,000 refugees, with some 7,000 more scattered across 20 villages along the DRC side of the river. Another group of 3,000 to 4,000 refugees is gathered in the town of Libenge, some 100 kilometres south of Zongo. 

Most of the refugees arrived in northwest DRC in early June in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt. Although many refugees returned in June and July, new refugees arrived in late July, after an announcement by the Central African government that it had closed its border with Congo.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR yesterday stated it had finally reached the 25,000 refugees and completed the first phase of an emergency airlift of relief supplies. Speaking to the press in Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said nearly 20 tonnes of plastic sheeting, blankets, mats, jerry cans and kitchen sets flown late last week from the DRC capital of Kinshasa had been ferried by helicopter to Zongo. 

The refugees still do not trust in the seeming tranquillity in Bangui after the violent coup attempt and its aftermath, where loyal government troops hunted down rebels. The coup attempt also had had notations of an ethnic strife, the rebels being southerners protesting against the government, dominated by northerners. 

Government troops in the first days after the coup attempt had hunted down on Yakoma people (southerners) in the southern suburbs of Bangui, where the rebels had their stronghold. Summary executions and attacks against Yakomas by the troops ensued after the coup, witnesses said, although the authorities have denied accusations of 'ethnic cleansing.' Coup leader Andre Kolingba himself is of the Yakoma people.

Conflict in the Central African Republic has undulated over the past years, the June coup attempt being the last overt hostility. Apart from ethnic differences, social and economic backgrounds have played a significant part. Unpaid wages lead to waves of demonstrations and strikes in 2000 and earlier this year. Promised economic aid after the civil war has not materialised.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 5 July in a report to the UN Security Council warned that the Central African Republic still was "in a crisis situation". The country was facing an "economic emergency" which should be addressed through prompt assistance from the international community, Annan wrote.

Annan urged bilateral and multilateral partners to support a new 75-million US dollar "minimum plan of action for social and economic recovery" elaborated by the country's authorities. Annan also confirmed the country's claim that "poverty is the breeding ground" for the Central African Republic's instability. 

However, neither the World Bank nor the IMF has launched any new projects in the Central African Republic since the coup attempt. No fresh resources from the international community are underway, although the statements of support of Ange Felix Patassé's government have been universal. 

Sources: Based on UN sources and afrol archives

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