NGO resumes drug distribution in the north

An EC-funded emergency medical programme, which was suspended on 30 May because of insecurity in northern Central African Republic, has resumed, an official of the NGO implementing the project told IRIN on Thursday. The representative of the Italian humanitarian NGO Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), Massimiliano Pedretti, said the distribution of drugs had resumed in Ouaham Province. He said that a COOPI team, comprising a physician and a logistics officer, arrived on Thursday in Bossangoa, 305 km north of Bangui, the nation's capital, and was to start distributing drugs to local health facilities on Friday. COOPI suspended its medical programme when unidentified armed men stole its vehicle near Bossangoa. The NGO also withdrew its staff from its Bossangoa base. In response to the insecurity in the north, the government deployed troops in the towns of Bozoum (384 km northwest of Bangui), Bossemptele (295 km northwest of Bangui), Bossembele (157 km northwest of Bangui), as well as Bossangoa. On 6 May, the CAR military presented a "security map" to the UN system in the country in an effort to facilitate humanitarian operations. The map identified areas classified as secure in order to enable humanitarian workers to start helping war-affected populations. On Thursday, two joint UN-NGO security assessment missions left Bangui for Bossangoa and Bambari (385 km east of Bangui), two towns that were declared secure. Pedretti said that COOPI's Bozoum base would be set up "very soon" to coordinate and supervise medical activities in the Ouham Pende Province. In May, the EC disbursed US $1.78 million for the rehabilitation of the health system and drug supplies in nine of the 16 provinces in the country. The programme, to last until December, is expected to benefit about the half of the country's 3.5 million people. Fighting between government and rebel troops between October 2002 and March 2003 mainly affected the north and the east of the country, with thousands of people being displaced. The fighting ended when former army chief of staff Francois Bozize ousted President Ange-Felix Patasse on 15 March.