Central African Republic

With help from a patient and national staff, Katherine Sisterman, a U.S. nurse on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in northern Central African Republic (CAR) developed a song to teach people about human African trypanosomiasis, also called sleeping sickness or trypano. Here, she describes how the song came to be.

The southwestern area of Central African Republic (CAR) continues to face a severe nutritional emergency. In September, after being alerted by local authorities, MSF medical teams opened four feeding centers in Carnot, Boda, Nola, and Gamboula. Teams also implemented a number of outpatient treatment programs. Three months later, staff have treated more than 4,000 children. Clara Delacre, MSF emergency coordinator in Boda and Nola, explains the situation on the ground.

Barcelona/Paris/New York, September 22, 2009 – The south-western area of the Central African Republic (CAR) is facing a severe nutritional emergency, with more than 1,000 children at grave risk, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today.

Carol Calero is a field physician for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Currently she is working in the nutritional emergency in southwestern Central African Republic (CAR). In this interview, she talks about being in the heart of a health emergency and of the positive cases that keeps her spirits up.

We brought therapeutic foods, milk, medicines and logistical supplies, such as tents, because we had no idea what we would find there. When we arrived, the hospital team greeted us warmly. They seemed very relieved to see us. We got to work the next morning.

On July 23, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) opened a malnutrition treatment program in Carnot, a city in southwestern Central African Republic (CAR). Almost 400 severely malnourished children have already been admitted.

"Violence has never stopped, it has always been present. Sometimes it is the result of the political conflict between the government and armed groups and sometimes it is different: banditry or intra-community conflicts."

Bangui/New York, April 30, 2009 — A new escalation of violence between the army and a rebel group in the north of Central African Republic (CAR), has forced, once again, thousands of people to flee their homes. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) estimates there could be around 8,000 newly displaced in the region of Kabo and Moyen Sido. They have sought refuge in the bush, where they live in particularly harsh conditions in the current rainy season, with no access to healthcare and out of reach of humanitarian aid.

Regions in northern Central African Republic have witnessed renewed fighting since the end of February  involving rebel groups and the national army.

Photojournalist Spencer Platt traveled to Central African Republic in December 2007 to photograph MSF’s activities there.

Berlin/Bangui, Central African Republic, March 13, 2008 — A woman was shot dead in a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) ambulance, Monday, March 10, when an unidentified gunman fired on the vehicle in Vakaga Province in the northeast of the Central African Republic (CAR). As a result, MSF has suspended its mobile clinic activities outside the main towns in the region. This is the second person to be killed in an attack on MSF in the past nine months in CAR. The ambulance was carrying a mother and her baby who had been discharged from the MSF health center in Gordil, a provincial town. The 32-year-old woman leaves behind six children.

MSF has been working in Paoua since March 2006. Despite the constant threat of attack, the population has recently managed to move around again, on most roads, within 30 kilometers around the town. The hospital in the town is extremely busy, and MSF is also in the process of resuming its activities in the surrounding area, by supporting health posts there. Delphine Chedorge, MSF head of mission, describes the situation on the ground.

Yaoundé/Geneva, July 31, 2007 – Mortality rates and the medical and nutritional situation among the refugees that have been entering Cameroon for over a year have exceeded emergency thresholds. In response to this situation, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has begun targeted food distribution to meet the vital needs of this vulnerable population. Now more than ever, it is essential for humanitarian actors to mobilize as quickly as possible.

Bangui, Central African Republic, June 25, 2007 — The insecurity that prevails in northwestern Central African Republic (CAR) is severely impacting civilian populations and the humanitarian workers assisting them, Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

June 19, 2007 — The Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD), a rebel group in the Central African Republic (CAR), claimed in an interview on Radio France International on Monday, June 18, that it had executed an APRD member who fired the shot that killed MSF staff member Elsa Serfass in northwestern CAR on June 11. In agreement with Elsa's family, MSF had requested that the APRD show mercy towards the perpetrator.

Paris/Bangui, June 11, 2007 -- It is with great sadness that Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has learned of the death of one of its volunteers in the Central African Republic. Elsa Serfass, a 27-year-old French citizen, was killed today by gunfire during an assessment mission in the northwestern part of the country. Ms. Serfass was on her first assignment with MSF, working as a logistician.

Since mid-2006 violence has dramatically increased in scale and intensity in the northern parts of Central African Republic—with grave consequences for the civilians who are caught in the crossfire of a number of armed groups.

New York, January 9, 2007 — The staggering human toll taken by tuberculosis and malnutrition as well as the devastation caused by wars in the Central African Republic (CAR), Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are among the "Top Ten" Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2006, according to the year-end list released today by the international humanitarian medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The ninth annual list also highlights the lack of media attention paid to the plight of people affected by the consequences of conflict in Haiti, Somalia, Colombia, Chechnya, and central India.

Since November 2005, various rebel groups have appeared in the northwest region of the country, in the Ouham and Ouham Pendé prefectures. Since then, the civilian population has been subject to considerable abuse, beginning in the Paoua region, expanding to the area around Markounda and, more recently, in the Kabo region.

The civilian population in the north of the Central African Republic is bearing the brunt of an ongoing conflict between rebel and government forces. MSF is running a hospital and operating mobile clinics in and around 10 locations in Markounda, northeastern Central African Republic.