FAO distributes materials to fishermen

Some 1,200 fishermen and fish farmers in the Central African Republic have begun receiving fishing material from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an official told IRIN on Friday. Nicolas Bokossi, the technical coordinator of the FAO project to re-equip victims of the May 2001 coup attempt, said the beneficiaries, grouped in 60 cooperatives, started to received the items on Friday so they could make nets and hooks. He said that the US $322,000 programme, due to end in December, was aimed at revamping market gardens, food crop cultivating, fishing and fish farms. He said the distribution of farm and fishing tools would target at least 7,900 people in the areas affected by the 28 May 2001 coup. FAO has ordered 127 new canoes for 40 fishing cooperatives. These will be ready for use in November. In the aftermath of the failed coup, led by former President Andre Kolingba, many fishermen along the River Oubangui lost their livelihood as they were forced to flee. "When I came out of hiding I did not find my two canoes and my nets," Abel Koipingo, 32, of Bangui's Ouango suburb, told IRIN. He is a member of a 15-member fishing cooperative known as "Kwa na Kwa" (which means hard work in one of the local languages) that suspended its activities when its property was looted. He said the cooperative needed at least three canoes to resume fishing. Fisherman Jean-Aaron Kolla-Gbouthe, 54, also said his 17-member fishing cooperative, the Organisation des Pecheurs du Secteur Ouango-Bangui, needed at least one canoe equipped with an outboard motor to make up for lost time and to maximise its catch. FAO is also restocking fish farms in areas affected by the May 2001 coup. Jerome Saragba, the chairman of a 25-member fish-farming cooperative, the Cooperative Agro-Piscicole de Ndress, said most of its fish had died when rockets landed in their 2.3 ha of pools.