Africa.gm - Africa news and information community - News - RSS

Syndicated content powered by .geographical media

RSS syndication makes it easy to receive content updates in My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, and other news readers.

Current Feed Content

---

In Brief: Grim outlook for Central African Republic's children

NAIROBI Thursday, November 27, 2008 (IRIN) - Untreated trauma from seeing the killing of relatives, kidnapping by bandits or forced recruitment into armed groups, hunger and disease: these are among the problems experienced by thousands of  internally displaced children in the Central African Republic, according to a new report. “It will take a concerted effort on the part of both the government and the international community to redress this state of neglect,” urged the report, itself...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Living in fear after rebel attack

SAM OUANDJA Friday, November 28, 2008 (IRIN) - The residents of this town near the Sudanese border are on edge, fearful that rebel fighters will repeat a recent assault that caused three-quarters of the population to flee in panic. Aid workers are still trying to track down many of the vulnerable residents, as well as Sudanese refugees from nearby camps, who fled to the bush after the attack on the night of 8 November and have not yet returned. "The latest attack traumatised people; many are...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Mahamat Oumar Ismael, "Go back to Darfur? Not even in my dreams"

SAM OUANDJA Wednesday, November 26, 2008 (IRIN) - Mahamat Oumar Ismael is one of 3,000 Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict in Darfur and have lived since 2007 in camps near Sam Ouandja, in the northwest Central African Republic. Security, he told IRIN, is the absolute priority for his family and the other refugees in the camp. "On 14 May 2007, we saw planes in the sky over Dafak [a town of 50,000 people in Darfur]. They bombed the town and we had to abandon everything and flee. We left on...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Who’s who with guns?

BANGUI Friday, May 09, 2008 (IRIN) - The Central African Republic is striving to turn the page on decades of armed violence linked to mutinies, coups and attempted coups. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced, many of them unable, or too afraid, to farm their land. This is an overview of the various armed groups, government security forces and international military missions in the country. L’Armée Populaire pour la restauration de la république et la démocratie – APRD A rebel...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: “We fear we will never see our husbands again”

PAOUA Wednesday, June 11, 2008 (IRIN) - Years of armed conflict and banditry have wreaked havoc in northwestern Central African Republic (CAR). For many in this region, especially cattle-raising communities, by far the worst threat is posed by criminals who kidnap heads of families or children for exorbitant ransoms. This often forces people to sell their entire herds to secure the release of their relatives. Aroun Gombo is a member of the Mbororo ethnic group, for whom cattle-raising has...

Central African Republic: aid for 20,000 displaced people

The Red Cross has just completed a distribution of basic necessities to nearly 20,000 people in villages of north-western CAR.In September, the residents of these areas fled clashes pitting the Armée populaire pour la restauration de la république et de la démocratie (APRD) against government forces or self-defence committees.Fearing for their safety, thousands of people took refuge in the bush. Some of them are beginning to return to their villages, but living conditions there remain...

Female prison management workers hired in Central African Republic

Four female prison wardens and 12 female prison guards trained at the National School of Administration of the Judiciary in Bangui have been seconded to the Minister of Justice as part of UNDP’s Project in Support of Judicial Security. The hires mark the first time that qualified female staff have been chosen to work in prison management in the Central African Republic.  Prisons there, including detention facilities intended specifically for women, had since the time of the country’s...

Central African Republic: Our daughters have no future

Women in Ndele, a remote town in northern Central African Republic, are making a stand for their rights. The local chapter of the national women’s organisation, OFCA, has launched a campaign to alert women to their rights on issues such as female genital mutilation/cutting, early marriages and polygamy. More than 15 percent of women in conflict-ravaged northern CAR are estimated to have experienced some form of gender-based violence, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Who’s who with guns?

The Central African Republic is striving to turn the page on decades of armed violence linked to mutinies, coups and attempted coups. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced, many of them unable, or too afraid, to farm their land. This is an overview of the various armed groups, government security forces and international military missions in the country. L’Armée Populaire pour la restauration de la république et la démocratie – APRD A rebel group active in the...

CAR: Struggling to undo the damage of sexual violence

The Monam group of rape survivors in the northern town of Bossangoa in the Central African Republic (CAR) does what it can to keep going, but morale is low and money tight. "We've been left to fend for ourselves. We get little help from outside. Many of our members have died," the group's chairwoman, Pelagie Ndokoyanga, told IRIN/PlusNews. Monam, which means "common good" in the Sango language, was set up in 2006 to bring together female survivors of sexual violence committed in 2001 and 2002...