UN tightens security in CAR’s town of Bakouma
The UN peacekeepers will protect the civilian population and help to organise legislative elections later this month.
CAPE TOWN, May 11 (ANA) – The United Nations has deployed 300 peacekeepers to help secure the town of Bakouma in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
On Sunday morning, the peacekeepers moved into Bakouma, one of the towns where security concerns delayed holding elections in December and March, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said on Monday.
The peacekeepers will protect the civilian population and help to organise legislative elections later this month, Dujarric said.
Access to Bakouma, about 130km north of the regional capital of Bangassou on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, is now possible since bridges damaged weeks ago by armed groups have been repaired, Xinhua reported.
Violence associated with the December 2020 presidential elections in the CAR has forcibly displaced more than 200,000 people within and outside the country, including another 2,000 who fled into Chad, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) said last week during its announcement of a US$1-million grant to respond to the situation of refugee children and youth in Chad who fled violence in the CAR.
It said out of the 117,000 CAR refugees who fled their country amid the post-electoral violence, Chad hosts close to 11,000. This brought the total number of refugees from the CAR in Chad to close to 105,000 people.
Among the newly arrived refugees registered by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Chad, more than 3,000 school-aged children have been settled in two refugee camps and three host villages.
An additional 4,000 refugee children and youth were already living in the refugee camps in the host villages of Beakoro, Don and Bekan, in the South Province of Chad.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), the CAR has this year seen the highest level of child displacement in the country since 2014. Unicef has warned of mounting risks for children, including exposure to sexual and physical violence, recruitment and use by armed groups, increasing rates of malnutrition and limited access to essential services.
The Central African country has experienced conflict since 2013 when predominantly Muslim rebels known as Seleka removed former President Francois Bozize from power, plunging the country into violence and instability when their brutal rule gave rise to anti-Balaka Christian militias.
Tensions rose in the run-up to last December’s vote as the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) rebels, led by Bozize, launched a series of attacks nationwide and took control of some towns.
Three UN peacekeepers were killed during the December violence that caused massive displacements in the country.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher
