UN official heads to Central African Republic to spotlight relief needs

With just 4 per cent of humanitarian funds needed to help the Central African Republic (CAR) collected, a United Nations humanitarian coordinator will visit the country next week to raise awareness of the complex conditions there, a UN spokesman said today.

“The most recent humanitarian appeal for CAR was for $17 million to respond to urgent humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable groups. So far only $700,000 have been collected,” UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York.

In response, Ramiro Lopes da Silva of .the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) will visit the CAR to assess the nature and scale of the humanitarian crisis, review coordination and preparedness structures and recommend immediate measures that could be taken, the spokesman said.

The people of the Central African Republic (CAR), after repeated attempted coups in recent times, have suffered a political-military crisis since October 2002 that brought hardship to most of the population, according to OCHA.

Some 200,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) remain in the country, while about 42,000 refugees fled into neighbouring Chad, but many have since returned home, OCHA said.