This is the result of improving security in the capital and the onset of rains.
The number of Internally-displaced People, IDPs in the Central African Republic, CAR, capital, Bangui, has gradually been reducing in the past weeks, Radio France Internationale, RFI reported yesterday, March 19, 2014.
It cited the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, as saying that though temporary, the trend was prompted by the onset of rains and the desire of many to return home, hoping to find better means of subsistence. IOM said the number of IDP camps in Bangui had gone down to 50 from 70, with less than 200,000 displaced still left in Bangui.
At the Boy Rabe Monastery in the Fourth Subdivision, all the displaced people have returned home. One of the returnees attributed this to the calm that now reigns in the area. Rev. Father Pierre Claver Agbétiafan, Director of the Don Bosco Youth Centre, said those who left often returned as soon as gun firing erupted in their neighbourhoods. The centre that hitherto received 55,000 people, today houses only 200 people whose homes were destroyed in months of mayhem. Sources said returnees went back to the capital’s neighbourhoods where security has improved after the recent wave of Christian-on-Moslem attacks.
On the other hand, Doctors Without Borders, MSF says the refugee camp at the Bangui M'Poko International Airport that formerly hosted almost 100,000 people, is today left with 60,000. MSF CAR head of Communication, Mathieu Fourtoul, however pointed out that the figures were relative as some people who left the camp often come back to stay the night for fear of safety at home.
He added that Moslems were not yet leaving the camp as there was no proper security of protection for them in their former neighbourhoods. IOM’s Guiseppe Loprete corroborated the assertion by explaining that normalcy was yet to return to 80 per cent of the capital. The Special Envoy of the International Organisation of the Francophonie, Louis-Michel, who was recently in the country, said he had noticed significant improvements in security in Bangui.
The transitional government of President Catherine Samba-Panza, peacekeepers and aid agencies are also stepping up efforts to ensure a return to normalcy in Bangui. For example, new commanders were recently appointed for the national army that is being rebuilt.
