February 17, 12

NEWS / Central African Republic: UN and partners ask for more funds for relief work

17 February 2012 –
The United Nations agencies and their partners today requested $134 million to fund relief programmes for an estimated 1.9 million people affected by conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) for the next 12 months.

“Over the past two years, the Central African Republic has received less than 50 per cent funding for its consolidated appeals,” said Zakaria Maïga, the acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator for CAR at the launch of the appeal in the country’s capital, Bangui.

“I therefore urge the international community to increase their financial support.”

Those in need include some 19,867 refugees, 94,386 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 71,601 returnees and communities hosting them.

Despite years of receiving relief, CAR remains fragile, with ongoing violence threatening the resilience of the population in a country where poverty is widespread.

“Most humanitarian actors describe the crisis as a forgotten emergency which is worsened by insufficient funding,” said Jean Sébastien Munié, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) office in CAR.

“Due to an extremely high level of vulnerability, most incidents lead to a humanitarian crisis, requiring emergency assistance. Substantial funding is therefore crucial,” he added.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41276&Cr=Central+African+Republic&Cr1=