Desperate Villagers Flee Central African Republic

NAIROBI, June 26 -- Widespread banditry, kidnapping and political violence in the volatile and virtually lawless northeastern corner of the Central African Republic are forcing thousands of villagers to flee to Chad, where the security situation is possibly more desperate, according to an Amnesty International report released Tuesday.

The strife in the Republic, a landlocked nation of about 4.4 million people, is being exacerbated by the politically distinct conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, which has spilled into eastern Chad.

"There is a lot of talk rightly about Darfur and eastern Chad, but the international community seems to be forgetting the people in CAR," said Godfrey Byaruhanga, an Amnesty International researcher who interviewed villagers in the Republic and Chad.

The largest humanitarian relief effort in the world has been mobilized to help an estimated 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict in Sudan. But there is "a near complete vacuum" of any protection for civilians in the Republic, he said.

The Central African Republic army has been battling at least four rebel groups in the northeastern corner of the country, which borders Chad on the west and Sudan on the east. Villagers have been caught in the middle, with rebels killing civilians who refuse to join up with their movements, and government soldiers killing civilians accused of helping the rebels, according to the Amnesty report.

Perhaps taking their cue from the tactics employed by the Sudanese government in Darfur, government forces in the Republic have burned entire villages to the ground.

Opportunistic bandits and moonlighting rebels -- including some from Chad -- have come to see the Republic as a kind of free-for-all, and kidnapping has become rampant, Byaruhanga said.

In some cases, children as young as 3 have been taken and held for ransom as high as $4,000, a fortune to rural villagers. Byaruhanga said some families told him their children had been kidnapped as many as seven times. Cattle have also been plundered, leaving families destitute.

In recent months, at least 10,000 people from the Republic have crossed into the savannahs of southern Chad, Byaruhanga said, and several thousand more are said to be on the move.

"It is extremely desperate," Byaruhanga said.