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May 13, 2008

Leaving for CAR
I am at the airport again, about to begin the long journey to the Central African Republic (CAR) located at the heart of the African continent. It is the least developed and most abandoned country on the planet. CAR is home to 4.2 million people. In rural areas (most of the country) 75 percent of the population has no access to safe water. Malnutrition rates are among the highest anywhere. CAR has been torn apart by more than a decade of violence. The most profoundly affected regions are in the northeast and the northwest. This is where I will be traveling for the next two weeks. The remote northeast lies along the Sudan border. Villages there have been attacked 3 times by Darfur's janjaweed. Ironically it is also the place to which thousands of Darfuris fled when their villages were attacked. They are living in camps which were hastily set up when they began to arrive this past year. I will be visiting the people in the camps and in the town of Birao which was destroyed by the three attacks. I don't know whether the inhabitants returned to rebuild. Only a small percentage of the population had returned to their homes when I last visited-shortly after the first attack.



In the lawless northwest, rebel groups, bandits and government forces range through the countryside clashing, pillaging, burning villages and killing civilians, raping women, stealing livestock and kidnapping children.



About 300,000 have been displaced. Many are living in the bush, too terrified to return to their villages and fields. I met people who were living for more than a year without shelter, or any assistance whatsoever. They survived by eating leaves and drinking swamp water. They were emaciated, caked in gray dust, wearing remnants of clothing or none at all. "Our children are dying" they told me.



In the past three months there has been a surge in attacks upon aid workers.



I will try to send blogs whenever I have access to the internet but that won't be very often.
 
 
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