Humanitarian catastrophe looms

As forces loyal to Central African Republic (CAR) President Ange-Felix Patasse surrounded remaining mutineers one week after a failed coup attempt in the capital Bangui, relief organisations issued urgent warnings of a looming humanitarian crisis. “A mobilisation of humanitarian agencies, funders, and governments is imperative from this moment on in order to avoid a catastrophe,” an NGO source in Bangui told IRIN on Tuesday. With current estimates of some 30,000 to 40,000 people having already fled Bangui, sources noted that the number could rise considerably as people continued to pour out of the city into surrounding villages. “There will be enormous needs in terms of food and health in the months to come,” the NGO source said. “This won’t be easy because access is impeded [by ongoing fighting].” The death toll in Bangui was estimated to have reached the hundreds, with most of the dead believed to have been Yakomas, the ethnic group of coup leader and former president Andre Kolingba, the Associated Press reported. Old resentments appeared to be resurfacing, as crowds cried for yet more blood from Kolingba’s ethnic group, chanting, “Kill the Yakoma!” A Radio France Internationale (RFI) report 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.” Many corpses remained scattered throughout the streets of the city, awaiting burial once order was fully restored. Presidential spokesman Prosper Ndouba announced that Patasse “has put a price on Kolingba’s head with a reward of 25m CFA francs (US $38,000) to anyone who can deliver him dead or alive”. Reports of Kolingba’s capture or death appear to have been premature, as rebel commanders told news sources that they were in regular contact with him and awaiting his orders to launch a counter-offensive. Speaking from his residence on the newly-installed “Radio Peace and Liberty” station, set up by the government to replace the main transmitter destroyed during the coup, Patasse declared the defeat of the mutineers and the victory of his soldiers. However, pockets of resistance still remained on Tuesday as the CAR military, with the support of troops from Libya and the Congolese rebel Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC) were reported to have unleashed a relentless assault against remaining rebels trapped in the southwestern Bangui districts of Bimbo, Petevo, Fatima and Bruxelles. Those who tried to escape across the Oubangui River to the DRC were repelled by MLC troops posted along the shoreline. IRIN continued to receive reports on Tuesday of widespread violence and pillaging by MLC soldiers, despite a government statement issued Monday that warned loyalist troops hunting Kolingba and his renegade soldiers not to loot. Amid growing concern from the DRC regarding the military support CAR was receiving from the MLC, DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu summoned the CAR ambassador Bernard Le Sissa to his office in Kinshasa on Monday. However, in an interview with Congolese state television, Ambassador Le Sissa sought to allay fears and speculation regarding any alliance between his country and the MLC, led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. “This is to tell you that what is currently going on in the CAR will not have any impact on the relations between the CAR and the DRC...President Patasse has never supported Jean-Pierre Bemba,” he stated. The coup attempt has been widely condemned by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the European Union (EU), the UN Security Council, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who spoke to Patasse by telephone over the weekend. According to Annan’s spokesman, the Secretary-General “is hoping that the constitutional order [in CAR] can be respected and that the mutiny that happened there last week can be brought under control and order restored with a minimum of suffering to the civilian population.” Patasse won the nation’s first multiparty elections in 1993, ending more than a decade of army rule by General Andre Kolingba. Kolingba led three unsuccessful coup attempts against Patasse in 1996 and 1997, reportedly motivated by insufficient military salaries, after which a French-backed African force followed by a UN peacekeeping mission were sent to CAR. Patasse won re-election in 1999 amid opposition claims of vote fraud.