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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: UN agencies mobilise to help displaced

NAIROBI, 12 June (IRIN) - UN humanitarian agencies are mobilising to help tens of thousands of people displaced by the violence of the failed 28 May coup attempt against President Ange-Felix Patasse in the Central African Republic (CAR) capital Bangui, a UN spokesman said.

Planning and coordination is underway among UN agencies to assist the estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people displaced as a result of events. Unofficial death toll estimates of the 11-day ordeal range between 250 to 300 lives lost.

A UN flight carrying 30 tonnes of health and water supply equipment was scheduled to arrive from Kinshasa, while more flights from other locations in the region and in Europe were expected in the coming days, the spokesman said. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) will serve as the lead humanitarian agency in the response to the needs of the population in the aftermath of the attempted coup.

After meeting with Gabon's Foreign Minister Jean Peng in Libreville, the UN Secretary-General's special envoy General Amadou Toumani Toure, the former president of Mali, was due to arrive in Bangui on Tuesday. Toure will hold discussions aimed at ending clashes in Bangui between forces loyal to the government and the rebels.

Meanwhile, the manhunt continues for former president and coup leader Andre Kolingba and his supporters, many of whom were reported to have fled Bangui into the surrounding countryside. A bounty of 25 million CFA (US $38,000) has been offered by the government for Kolingba, dead or alive.

An NGO source in Bangui told IRIN on Tuesday that despite "a semblance of normality" having returned to the city, there were ongoing reports of retaliations against the Yakomas, the ethnic group of Kolingba. A Radio France Internationale (RFI) report last week observed that "those supporting Patasse seem not to distinguish between the civilians and the putschists. It is as if behind every Yakoma, a mutineer was hiding. In Bangui hatred messages are being circulated." Patasse is from one of the Sara ethnic groups of the northern savannah of the CAR.

Division in Bangui mirrors the country's ethnic split between Patasse's north and the south, home to Kolingba, independence President David Dacko, and the late Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who crowned himself emperor before being toppled in 1979.

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