In CAR, despair grows for mothers who can’t feed their children The New Hunger

A two-year-old boy is calling for his mother to be gently weighed in a health center in the north-west of the Central African Republic, where there is an unprecedented food crisis.

“There’s no food in the house,” says the 22-year-old mother.

“I can tell he’s not well because he’s crying all the time and he’s not playing anymore.”

The civil war has erupted in a nation of nearly five million people in poverty since 2013, displacing hundreds of thousands from their homes and sparking a major humanitarian crisis.

The president declared a unilateral ceasefire in October, following anti-insurgency gains, but with insecurity in the country’s northwest, many continue to struggle to feed it.

“It’s related to poverty and insecurity,” he says. “The conflict is preventing residents from growing crops and making it difficult for them to earn an income.”

At the Paua Health Center, a town about 500 kilometers (300 miles) northwest of the capital Bangui, desperate mothers have taken their children to be examined.

Many are expecting some pasta sachets from the United Nations Food Agency, the World Food Program (WFP).

Among the people, a half-starving girl cries, but the breast milk of her malnourished mother is not enough to satisfy her.

A nurse measures 12-month-old Severine’s arm: just 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) in diameter, and very little for a child her age.

Modeste Loyo Motayo, head of the town’s health center with a population of 47,000, says hunger is the most common of the patients.

Scarce fruits and vegetables

The WFP estimates that an average of 42 percent of Central Africans struggle to get enough food every day, a percentage that is projected to increase next year.

But the food crisis is worsening in the northwestern part of the country bordering Chad, and there are still clashes between rebels and government forces.

In the Ouham-Pende region near Paoua, 61 percent of people are suffering from a severe food crisis, according to Mahoua Coulibaly of the UN food agency.

Today, a few poorly stocked stalls make up the central market of Paoua. Fruits and vegetables are scarce, as insecurity has disrupted supply.

“Everything is getting more expensive,” said Abas Mahamat, a member of the Paoua transport union.

“How are people going?”

In December 2020, the rebels launched a new attack on President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s regime on the eve of the presidential election.

Touadera won the election again and recaptured the territory lost by his army, the United Nations and France have said with the help of Russia’s private security group Wagner, which Moscow denies.

But last month, fighting in the northwestern part of the country killed about 30 civilians and two soldiers.

Authorities blamed the 3R group for the violence, which last year controlled two-thirds of the country’s territory.

Conflicting rebels have scattered in the bush, prompting many rural residents to seek refuge in Paouan or other villages.

In the Bimbi district of Paoua, about 20 displaced people share a modest meal: a small casserole of cassava leaves.

Simplice Massemba points to a narrow room where he sleeps with seven others after 3R attacked his village.

“They killed our neighbors and took our houses. We escaped without taking anything with us, ”he says.

Like more than 100 other displaced people in the area, they have found shelter in a foster family, but say there is not enough space to accommodate them all.

“A lot of people have to sleep outside in the morning,” he says.

More than 600,000 people have been displaced as a result of the conflict in the Central African Republic, according to the UN agency OCHA.

Alongside Massemba, Michel Gotto, a 77-year-old villager uprooted by a rebel attack, is struggling to stay afloat.

“I was on the field with my kids when the 3R rebels came and tortured us,” he says. “I just want to go home.”