U.N. resumes aid to 'desperate' Central African Republic refugees
A French soldier and an African Union peacekeeper from Burundi participate in a joint patrol, in the Galabadja district of Bangui, Central African Republic, on Saturday, January 4. While insecurity continued to reign in many areas of the city, certain neighborhoods were tentatively reopening and some residents returning, at least during daylight hours. The African nation has been dealing with violence between Muslim and Christian militias since a March coup.
An African Union peacekeeper from Burundi participates in a joint patrol with French forces in the Fouh neighborhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, on Janurary 4.
People displaced by violence walk amid makeshift shelters in a section of a sprawling camp abutting Mpoko Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, on January 4.
Children crowd around a volunteer distributing rice porridge at a makeshift camp at M'Poko Airport in Bangui on Friday, January 3. Escalating violence in the Central African Republic is posing a threat to children, with at least two beheaded and thousands recruited as soldiers, the United Nations said.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, center right, speaks to a wounded soldier in a medical tent during a visit to the M'Poko Camp in Bangui on Thursday, January 2. France has sent 1,600 troops under United Nations mandate into Central African Republic to assist African troops.
People displaced by violence attempt to create a semblance of normal life in a sprawling camp at M'poko Airport in Bangui on January 2.
A medical worker checks the injuries of a man who has been struck by gunfire. The man was treated at a Doctors Without Borders clinic inside a makeshift camp in Bangui on January 2.
A member of an armed neighborhood defense squad, which residents say is local Christian residents protecting themselves, carries a machete as he walks near a roadblock in Bangui on Tuesday, December 31.
People wait for evacuation flights in a hangar at the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, on Sunday, December 29.
Displaced young people use a tree branch to climb a wall in Bangui on Saturday, December 28.
A man carries beams stripped from a house, back left, said to have belonged to a Seleka officer who had been attacking the surrounding Christian population, in Bangui on December 28.
French soldiers patrol the Fouh district in Bangui on December 28.
A man walks on a roof beam in Bangui on December 28 as local residents tear apart a house said to have belonged to a Seleka officer who had been attacking the surrounding Christian population.
Angry Christians shout at a truck of fleeing Muslims in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui on Friday, December 27.
A young boy watches as people hurl rocks at passing vehicles carrying fleeing Muslims in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui on December 27.
Muslims are taunted by Christians when their truck breaks down in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui. In recent days, passenger vehicles carrying panicked Muslims toward the northern edge of town have repeatedly come under attack by militiamen.
Cameroonians wait in line to board an evacuation flight at M'Poko Airport, which is guarded by French soldiers, in Bangui on December 27. Military escorts shuttled citizens of Chad and Cameroon to the airport Friday to board evacuation flights as French troops stepped in to help Muslims fleeing north by road.
An African Union peacekeeper carries an elderly Cameroonian woman to a military vehicle shuttling citizens to the airport for an evacuation flight in Bangui on December 27.
A young man who was hit in the back by a stray bullet cries out in pain at a Medecins sans Frontieres clinic in Bangui on Wednesday, December 25.
A militiaman holds a knife as he describes a recent attack in Bangui on Tuesday, December 24.
A motorcycle passes the remains of a mosque destroyed earlier in the month in Bangui on Monday, December 23.
French soldiers frisk a man at a checkpoint in Bangui on December 23.
French troops and civilians try to comfort a crying boy near the airport in Bangui on December 23.
French soldiers load a wounded man onto the front of a military vehicle to get medical help in Bangui on December 23.
Displaced people sit with their belongings at a makeshift camp housing thousands in Bangui on Saturday, December 21.
A boy looks out the broken window of a plane being used as shelter at M'Poko Airport in Bangui on December 21.
The body of a suspected militiaman lies in the road near a charred car in Bangui on Friday, December 20.
Christian men tear off pieces of the Gobango Mosque in Bangui on December 20.
People watch as French soldiers hold their position on a street in Bangui after hearing gunshots on December 20.
French troops patrol the Boy Rabe district of Bangui on December 20.
Tents are set up at a refugee camp near the airport in Bangui on Thursday, December 19.
A man carries a bag of food at a Christian refugee camp in Bossangoa, Central African Republic, on December 19.
A boy scarred from a machete attack waits at a pediatric hospital in Bangui on Wednesday, December 18.
An African Union peacekeeper stands on a chair December 18 as a small child sits on the floor of an Islamic center where refugees have sought protection in Bangui.
A severely malnourished child lays by his mother at a pediatric center in Bangui on Tuesday, December 17.
A French soldier patrols the Castor neighborhood of Bangui on Monday, December 16.
French troops patrol a street of the Muslim PK-5 district in Bangui on December 16.
Former soldiers linked to Christian militiamen rest Sunday, December 15, in a camp set up in a Bangui school. Christian vigilante groups formed to battle Seleka, the predominantly Muslim coalition behind the March removal of President Francois Bozize.
French soldiers patrol the streets of Paoua, Central African Republic, on December 15.
The Archbishop of Bangui, Dieu Donne Nzapa Lainga, preaches on Saturday, December 14, to people gathering at a refugee camp close to the Bangui airport.
Members of a militia opposed to the Seleka pose with weapons and amulets in the Boy-Rabe neighborhood in Bangui on December 14.
A Seleka presidential guardsman smokes at the downtown market in Bangui on December 14.
Christians at the Bangui airport gather in a makeshift camp for internally displaced people on Friday, December 13.
Muslim men rough up a Christian man while checking him for weapons December 13 in Bangui.
Peacekeeping troops from the Multinational Force of Central Africa shoot as they attempt to evacuate Muslim clerics from the St. Jacques Church in Bangui on Thursday, December 12. An angry crowd had gathered outside the church following rumors that a Seleka general was inside.
The bodies of 16 Muslim men are loaded onto a truck at the Nour Islam Mosque before being transported for burial in Bangui on Wednesday, December 11.
A young woman holds her baby at an elementary school in the Muslim district of Bangui on December 11.
People pray as they bury 16 coffins in a Muslim cemetery in Bangui on December 11.
French troops detain a suspected Seleka officer -- preventing a Christian mob from lynching him -- in Bangui on Monday, December 9. The mission of the peacekeeping force is to protect civilians in the Central African Republic, restore humanitarian access and stabilize the country.
French soldiers arrest an alleged ex-Seleka rebel in a neighborhood near the Bangui airport on December 9.
A man runs from gunfire December 9 during a disarmament operation by French soldiers in Bangui.
People gather around an alleged ex-Seleka rebel as he is arrested by French soldiers in Bangui on December 9.
People walk by a French soldier standing guard during a disarmament operation in Bangui on December 9.
A French soldier stands guard after the arrest of ex-Seleka rebels in a neighborhood near Bangui's airport on December 9.
French soldiers stand guard near a man they have arrested in Bangui on December 9.
French troops walk past two Seleka vehicles suspected of being set on fire by Christian mobs in Bangui.
A French soldier speaks to a suspected Christian militia member who was wounded by a machete in the Kokoro neighborhood of Bangui on December 9. Vigilante crowds said they spotted him with grenades and turned him in to French forces.
Mobs of Christians grab a child holding a knife in Bangui on December 9.
Children attend a mass given by the Archbishop of Bangui at Saint-Paul's parish on Sunday, December 8.
Children ask for biscuits at a base camp held by the French military in Bossembele, Central African Republic, on December 8.
Red Cross employees stand amid dozens of bodies at the morgue in Bangui on December 8.
Michel Djotodia, the country's president who had been one of the Seleka leaders, gives a press conference in his Bangui office on December 8.
A displaced child walks in Bangui on December 8.
Relatives of Thierry Tresor Zumbeti, who died from bullet wounds to the neck and stomach, grieve outside his home in Bangui on Saturday, December 7.
A former member of the militia that led the coup against the Central African Republic's president sits next to a machine gun as he and others stand guard at a shut-down market in Bangui on December 7.
Children play inside Bangui's Saint-Bernard Church, where their families took refuge following the wave of deadly violence on December 7.
French soldiers patrol a road in Baoro, Central African Republic, on December 7 as part of the military operation aiming at restoring security in the country.
A French soldier watches the road in Baoro on December 7.
People grieve for a man killed in Bangui on December 7.
Women push a coffin in the streets of Bangui on December 7.
A French helicopter lands at a base camp in Cameroon on Friday, December 6.
The U.N. Security Council votes Thursday, December 5 to authorize increased military action in the Central African Republic. The resolution, put forward by France, authorized an African Union-led peacekeeping force to intervene with the support of French troops.
People stand near bodies found lying in a mosque and in its surrounding streets in Bangui on December 5.
French military forces drive in Cameroon on December 5.
Civilians wait for treatment at Bangui's hospital after a daylong gun battle between Seleka soldiers and Christian militias on December 5.
A nurse tends to the wounded at Bangui's hospital on December 5.
Seleka soldiers race through Bangui as gunfire and mortar rounds erupt in the capital December 5.
Wounded civilians lie on the floor of Bangui's hospital on December 5.
Seleka soldiers patrol Bangui on December 5.
A severely wounded man lies unattended in a Bangui mosque December 5.
Shrouded bodies are seen in a Bangui mosque December 5.
Civilians seek shelter in a Catholic church in Bangui on December 5.
The United Nations' refugee agency resumed aid deliveries to an estimated 100,000 people in the Central African Republic who've sought refuge at the capital's international airport from the violence ravaging the country.
An African Union peacekeeper from Burundi participates in a joint patrol with French forces in the Fouh neighborhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, on Janurary 4.
People displaced by violence walk amid makeshift shelters in a section of a sprawling camp abutting Mpoko Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, on January 4.
Children crowd around a volunteer distributing rice porridge at a makeshift camp at M'Poko Airport in Bangui on Friday, January 3. Escalating violence in the Central African Republic is posing a threat to children, with at least two beheaded and thousands recruited as soldiers, the United Nations said.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, center right, speaks to a wounded soldier in a medical tent during a visit to the M'Poko Camp in Bangui on Thursday, January 2. France has sent 1,600 troops under United Nations mandate into Central African Republic to assist African troops.
People displaced by violence attempt to create a semblance of normal life in a sprawling camp at M'poko Airport in Bangui on January 2.
A medical worker checks the injuries of a man who has been struck by gunfire. The man was treated at a Doctors Without Borders clinic inside a makeshift camp in Bangui on January 2.
A member of an armed neighborhood defense squad, which residents say is local Christian residents protecting themselves, carries a machete as he walks near a roadblock in Bangui on Tuesday, December 31.
People wait for evacuation flights in a hangar at the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, on Sunday, December 29.
Displaced young people use a tree branch to climb a wall in Bangui on Saturday, December 28.
A man carries beams stripped from a house, back left, said to have belonged to a Seleka officer who had been attacking the surrounding Christian population, in Bangui on December 28.
French soldiers patrol the Fouh district in Bangui on December 28.
A man walks on a roof beam in Bangui on December 28 as local residents tear apart a house said to have belonged to a Seleka officer who had been attacking the surrounding Christian population.
Angry Christians shout at a truck of fleeing Muslims in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui on Friday, December 27.
A young boy watches as people hurl rocks at passing vehicles carrying fleeing Muslims in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui on December 27.
Muslims are taunted by Christians when their truck breaks down in the Gobongo neighborhood of Bangui. In recent days, passenger vehicles carrying panicked Muslims toward the northern edge of town have repeatedly come under attack by militiamen.
Cameroonians wait in line to board an evacuation flight at M'Poko Airport, which is guarded by French soldiers, in Bangui on December 27. Military escorts shuttled citizens of Chad and Cameroon to the airport Friday to board evacuation flights as French troops stepped in to help Muslims fleeing north by road.
An African Union peacekeeper carries an elderly Cameroonian woman to a military vehicle shuttling citizens to the airport for an evacuation flight in Bangui on December 27.
A young man who was hit in the back by a stray bullet cries out in pain at a Medecins sans Frontieres clinic in Bangui on Wednesday, December 25.
A militiaman holds a knife as he describes a recent attack in Bangui on Tuesday, December 24.
A motorcycle passes the remains of a mosque destroyed earlier in the month in Bangui on Monday, December 23.
French soldiers frisk a man at a checkpoint in Bangui on December 23.
French troops and civilians try to comfort a crying boy near the airport in Bangui on December 23.
French soldiers load a wounded man onto the front of a military vehicle to get medical help in Bangui on December 23.
Displaced people sit with their belongings at a makeshift camp housing thousands in Bangui on Saturday, December 21.
A boy looks out the broken window of a plane being used as shelter at M'Poko Airport in Bangui on December 21.
The body of a suspected militiaman lies in the road near a charred car in Bangui on Friday, December 20.
Christian men tear off pieces of the Gobango Mosque in Bangui on December 20.
People watch as French soldiers hold their position on a street in Bangui after hearing gunshots on December 20.
French troops patrol the Boy Rabe district of Bangui on December 20.
Tents are set up at a refugee camp near the airport in Bangui on Thursday, December 19.
A man carries a bag of food at a Christian refugee camp in Bossangoa, Central African Republic, on December 19.
A boy scarred from a machete attack waits at a pediatric hospital in Bangui on Wednesday, December 18.
An African Union peacekeeper stands on a chair December 18 as a small child sits on the floor of an Islamic center where refugees have sought protection in Bangui.
A severely malnourished child lays by his mother at a pediatric center in Bangui on Tuesday, December 17.
A French soldier patrols the Castor neighborhood of Bangui on Monday, December 16.
French troops patrol a street of the Muslim PK-5 district in Bangui on December 16.
Former soldiers linked to Christian militiamen rest Sunday, December 15, in a camp set up in a Bangui school. Christian vigilante groups formed to battle Seleka, the predominantly Muslim coalition behind the March removal of President Francois Bozize.
French soldiers patrol the streets of Paoua, Central African Republic, on December 15.
The Archbishop of Bangui, Dieu Donne Nzapa Lainga, preaches on Saturday, December 14, to people gathering at a refugee camp close to the Bangui airport.
Members of a militia opposed to the Seleka pose with weapons and amulets in the Boy-Rabe neighborhood in Bangui on December 14.
A Seleka presidential guardsman smokes at the downtown market in Bangui on December 14.
Christians at the Bangui airport gather in a makeshift camp for internally displaced people on Friday, December 13.
Muslim men rough up a Christian man while checking him for weapons December 13 in Bangui.
Peacekeeping troops from the Multinational Force of Central Africa shoot as they attempt to evacuate Muslim clerics from the St. Jacques Church in Bangui on Thursday, December 12. An angry crowd had gathered outside the church following rumors that a Seleka general was inside.
The bodies of 16 Muslim men are loaded onto a truck at the Nour Islam Mosque before being transported for burial in Bangui on Wednesday, December 11.
A young woman holds her baby at an elementary school in the Muslim district of Bangui on December 11.
People pray as they bury 16 coffins in a Muslim cemetery in Bangui on December 11.
French troops detain a suspected Seleka officer -- preventing a Christian mob from lynching him -- in Bangui on Monday, December 9. The mission of the peacekeeping force is to protect civilians in the Central African Republic, restore humanitarian access and stabilize the country.
French soldiers arrest an alleged ex-Seleka rebel in a neighborhood near the Bangui airport on December 9.
A man runs from gunfire December 9 during a disarmament operation by French soldiers in Bangui.
People gather around an alleged ex-Seleka rebel as he is arrested by French soldiers in Bangui on December 9.
People walk by a French soldier standing guard during a disarmament operation in Bangui on December 9.
A French soldier stands guard after the arrest of ex-Seleka rebels in a neighborhood near Bangui's airport on December 9.
French soldiers stand guard near a man they have arrested in Bangui on December 9.
French troops walk past two Seleka vehicles suspected of being set on fire by Christian mobs in Bangui.
A French soldier speaks to a suspected Christian militia member who was wounded by a machete in the Kokoro neighborhood of Bangui on December 9. Vigilante crowds said they spotted him with grenades and turned him in to French forces.
Mobs of Christians grab a child holding a knife in Bangui on December 9.
Children attend a mass given by the Archbishop of Bangui at Saint-Paul's parish on Sunday, December 8.
Children ask for biscuits at a base camp held by the French military in Bossembele, Central African Republic, on December 8.
Red Cross employees stand amid dozens of bodies at the morgue in Bangui on December 8.
Michel Djotodia, the country's president who had been one of the Seleka leaders, gives a press conference in his Bangui office on December 8.
A displaced child walks in Bangui on December 8.
Relatives of Thierry Tresor Zumbeti, who died from bullet wounds to the neck and stomach, grieve outside his home in Bangui on Saturday, December 7.
A former member of the militia that led the coup against the Central African Republic's president sits next to a machine gun as he and others stand guard at a shut-down market in Bangui on December 7.
Children play inside Bangui's Saint-Bernard Church, where their families took refuge following the wave of deadly violence on December 7.
French soldiers patrol a road in Baoro, Central African Republic, on December 7 as part of the military operation aiming at restoring security in the country.
A French soldier watches the road in Baoro on December 7.
People grieve for a man killed in Bangui on December 7.
Women push a coffin in the streets of Bangui on December 7.
A French helicopter lands at a base camp in Cameroon on Friday, December 6.
The U.N. Security Council votes Thursday, December 5 to authorize increased military action in the Central African Republic. The resolution, put forward by France, authorized an African Union-led peacekeeping force to intervene with the support of French troops.
People stand near bodies found lying in a mosque and in its surrounding streets in Bangui on December 5.
French military forces drive in Cameroon on December 5.
Civilians wait for treatment at Bangui's hospital after a daylong gun battle between Seleka soldiers and Christian militias on December 5.
A nurse tends to the wounded at Bangui's hospital on December 5.
Seleka soldiers race through Bangui as gunfire and mortar rounds erupt in the capital December 5.
Wounded civilians lie on the floor of Bangui's hospital on December 5.
Seleka soldiers patrol Bangui on December 5.
A severely wounded man lies unattended in a Bangui mosque December 5.
Shrouded bodies are seen in a Bangui mosque December 5.
Civilians seek shelter in a Catholic church in Bangui on December 5.
The agency, UNHCR, had halted its assistance to the refugees thronged at the airport in Bangui amid security concerns.
But the distribution of food and supplies resumed Tuesday after steps were taken to calm the situation, including the deployment of African Union and French peacekeeping troops around the airport, a news release Thursday said.
The UNHCR will now distribute aid including blankets, sleeping mats, soap, mosquito nets and plastic sheets to some 20,000 families, or about 100,000 people, it said.
"It is a relief for UNHCR and the displaced people staying at the airport site. We had to suspend distribution of aid on several occasions, and were frustrated that we could not properly assist people living on this site due to security concerns," said Kouassi Lazare Etien, the agency's representative in the Central African Republic.
People at the airport are "living in a desperate situation," he added.
More than 1,000 families have been moved to another part of the airport zone, which should ease the delivery of aid, the U.N. refugee agency said.
The agency appealed Friday for $40.2 million to help it respond to the crisis in the Central African Republic over the next three months.
The money is intended to support more than 1 million people, it said, including 958,000 people who have been displaced by the fighting in the country. Many of them are children.
There are also more than 86,000 refugees in Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo who fled the Central African Republic in 2013, the UNHCR said.
The latest appeal comes on the back of previous U.N. requests for funds, and reflects the worsening situation in the country, the UNHCR said.
The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders warned Wednesday of measles outbreaks among children in several camps in Bangui.
It is now vaccinating 68,000 children in five camps in the city in order to prevent an outbreak, it said. Measles, which can be deadly to children, is highly contagious and can spread rapidly in overcrowded conditions.
Sectarian violence
The nation was plunged into chaos after a coalition of rebels dubbed Seleka ousted President Francois Bozize in March of last year, the latest in a series of coups since the nation gained independence.
The rebels accused Bozize of reneging on a peace deal and demanded that he step down.
Months before his ouster, both sides had brokered a deal to form a unity government led by the President. But that deal fell apart as the rebel coalition pushed its way from the north toward Bangui, seizing towns along the way.
Rebels infiltrated the capital in March, sending Bozize fleeing to Cameroon, and one of the Seleka leaders, Michel Djotodia, became interim President.
Since then, political turmoil and violence have spiraled. Seleka is a predominantly Muslim coalition, and to counter the attacks on Christian communities, vigilante Christian groups fought back. The country has descended into anarchy, and the United Nations has warned that a genocide is brewing.
Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis as rapes, killings and other horrors grow in the nation. An unknown number of people have been killed in remote rural areas that are too risky to access. Others have fled into forests.
There is mounting international concern about the situation in the Central African Republic.
But in a statement posted Thursday, Djotodia's spokesman, Guy Simplice Kodegue, denied any intention by the interim leader to step down.
The statement followed media reports that Djotodia was going to resign from office at an upcoming regional summit in Chad.
Kodegue blamed "destabilizing sources" for the claims and said such "insinuations ... may incite the Central African people to hatred."
