      |
Central African Republic: “I listen to them”
A conflict between rebels and government troops has been raging in the north-east of the Central African Republic for years. Villages have been razed to the ground and people have had to flee – many are still in hiding in the forests, fearing for their lives. There is hardly any medical care available and the few government healthcare centres have been abandoned during the fighting. Susanne Döttling visited some Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) projects in the area in December 2007 with photographer Spencer Platt. After a two-and-a-half-hour flight over seemingly endless forests and savannah, the small MSF aeroplane touches down on the landing strip at Birao. It’s hot and dusty and although the rainy season is only just over, the land is already On the way there, I see deserted huts, destroyed by the most recent attacks in March 2007. But the small settlement is filled with the morning hustle and bustle: dressed in brightly coloured Islamic dress, women sit on the sandy ground selling dried fish, manioc and some vegetables. Men in white robes drive donkeys along, burdened with straw or wood. The occasional military vehicle drives by. The government recently agreed to a ceasefire with the rebels, but the people are wary. “We would love to trust in peace and we would love to have hope, but for the moment, we shall wait and see. Everything’s so chaotic and lots of families are still in hiding in the forests, fearing for their lives,” describes Zakariyas Bangé Bernard, 64-year-old pharmacist at the MSF clinic in Birao. Everybody in the clinic calls him Atta Jeune, which means ‘young father’. He indeed appears very much like a young man, with the experience of an elderly man who has been travelling and working for decades throughout the whole country. He knows everybody in the area, a charming annalist of the history of Vakaga. With his contagious laugh he tells me about all activities he started to make a change for the people of Birao. Beside being the pharmacist in the MSF clinic, he trains a youth group in football and he initiated a small local organisation, together with his wife, to do sensitisation about HIV/AIDS, still a big taboo in the mainly Muslim society of Birao. Vakaga province is home to around 50,000 people – a melting pot of mostly Muslim ethnic groups. The capital Bangui is further away than some places in Sudan or Chad and the province is largely left to run itself. In the rainy months, the whole region’s roads and tracks are barely passable. The unpaved roads become swamped and the two MSF health posts are only accessible by air.
Bandits cause great insecurity in the region. Many people do not dare to seek medical attention in larger settlements by making long journeys on foot for fear of being ambushed. Whole families live in the most primitive conditions in the forests in ramshackle shelters that barely offer any protection against the cold nights of the imminent dry season. Many of these people suffer from easily treatable diseases such as malaria or respiratory complaints, which can soon become life-threatening if not treated quickly. MSF drives mobile clinics out to these outlying areas in order to help the people there. The plight of the population in the northeast is completely invisible to the international public and landed again on MSFs Top Ten list of underreported crises in 2007. The Central African Republic is not merely a forgotten country, but rather a blind spot on the map of international interest. It is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average life expectancy of only 43 years. Not only since the end of 2006, when violence between rebel groups and government troops has forced thousands of people in Vakaga to flee their destroyed homes and villages, the population suffers from a near-total lack of health care. In an atmosphere of violence and general insecurity, fuelled by roadside banditry, MSF started, in March 2007, to provide assistance to villagers and displaced in urgent need for medical care. Through mobile and fixed clinics our teams offer basic health care, maternal care, paediatrics, and they also provide mental health care and can do minor emergency surgical interventions. In December 2007 the teams gave 2,500 consultations and treated an additional 880 patients for malaria. Four days after our arrival in Birao, we accompany a MSF team to the village of Gordil, where we arrive after a bumpy, 8-hour journey by car. Gordil is a cluster of simple mud huts, some of which have been destroyed or deserted. Not much else to find. There is no market and even pedlars passing through to sell some clothes, fabrics or soap are rare. After a short while I realise there is a special kind of silence in the village, arising from the absence of car engines. The team has set up a clinic here too, which offers psychosocial care in addition to medical care. From Gordil the team is going out with mobile clinics to remote places and villages in the area. MSF owns the only cars and is the only aid organisation in the wider area. “As soon as people hear the sounds of engines and they don’t know who it is, many still flee in fear into the fields,” says Ines Zeineba, while she walks with me through Gordil. Ines is a mental health counsellor at the MSF clinic here since October 2007. In December our three counsellors gave about 200 individual mental health consultations and also offered group sessions to nearly 100 persons. Ines has experienced much of what her patients tell her about first-hand. “They attacked my village, burnt everything and plundered it all. My family and some others managed to get away and we hid in the forest. We were on the run for more than a month, looking for a safe place to stay. We slept outside and ate wild fruits and roots.” Spurred on by her own memories, Ines tries to help other women in particular. “I listen to them and give them the opportunity to talk about their experiences in order to help them feel better. They trust me because I am like them and have shared the same experiences.” The young woman’s strength astounds me. Her dedication and that of her colleagues in Birao and Gordil gives me hope that change will come soon to Vakaga.
MSF is currently present throughout the violence-affected areas of northern CAR, providing urgently-needed primary and secondary health care with a network of hospitals, health centres and mobile medical activities in the northwest around Paoua, Boguila, Markounda, Batangafo, Kabo, Kaga Bandoro, and in the northeast around Gordil and Birao. 485 Central African staff and 55 international volunteers are currently in the Central African Republic to ensure quality health care for the most vulnerable population.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
