UN: Humanitarian situation continues to worsen in CAR

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned Thursday that the humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) continues to deteriorate, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here.
With the upsurge in violence and the spread of hot spots since September 2016, more than 100,000 newly displaced people have been registered, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
“This means that one in every five Central Africans is either displaced internally or is a refugee in neighboring countries,” he said. “Half of the population is now in need of humanitarian aid.”
However, funding for humanitarian action has been on a downward trend since 2014, he noted.
Only five percent of the 399.5 million U.S. dollars needed for humanitarian assistance in 2017 have been received.
The acting UN humanitarian coordinator for CAR, Michel Yao, together with the country’s minister of humanitarian, social affairs and national reconciliation, Virginie Baikoua, have urged donors not to let the CAR become a forgotten or neglected crisis, he said.
Clashes between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian, plunged the country of 4.5 million people into civil conflict in 2013.