Landlocked Central African Republic (CAR) is experiencing one of the most silent and forgotten emergencies in the world, the United Nations says. And despite an abundance of diamonds, uranium and gold, it is one of the poorest states in Africa.
The government has little presence or control outside the capital after years of instability and a history of frequent coups and mutinies.
Tens of thousands of people are displaced every year by rebel attacks, clashes between nomadic cattle herders and residents and marauding criminal gangs who thrive on the country’s lawlessness. Many villagers hide in the bush near their homes, while others flee across the border to Chad and Cameroon.
The education system and health services are in tatters after years of fighting, and the country’s life expectancy, child mortality and HIV rates are among the worst in the world.
The most recent coup took place in March 2013, when fighters from the Seleka rebel alliance ousted President Francois Bozize, accusing him of failing to uphold his end of a January 2013 peace deal.
