Acute hardship for CAR internally displaced

A UNHCR-Danish Refugee Council survey of displaced civilians near the town of Ndélé in northern Central African Republic  included high incidence of child or teenage marriage and widespread use of children as labour as problems that needed to be addressed. The survey covered 300 families from a population of 17,000 people in the area. One in five families reported having lost at least one family member during the first half of 2011 to insecurity, a lack of health services, or shortages of food. Among children between the ages of six and fifteen, 32.5 per cent were being used as child labour. Among girls between the ages of 12 and 17, 30 per cent had been sold into marriage. A UNHCR statemennt said that IDP families said they married their underage daughters to members of the host communities and sent children to farm and fish for these communities in exchange for housing, food or money. UNHCR staff also received reports of gang rape by armed groups.    The survey was carried out mainly between May and September, and will be extended to more villages in the region. Displaced people in the area had almost no access to humanitarian help before June this year when a ceasefire was signed between rebels of the Patriots' Convention for Justice and Peace - one of the main rebel factions in the area - and the CAR Government. Before the peace agreement, only civilians who managed to reach Ndélé town benefited from aid. Ndélé is located in the prefecture of Bamingui Bangoran, around 700 km from Bangui, the CAR capital.  It was once considered the country's breadbasket, but due to the multitude of rebel groups and armed banditry since 2005, many of its residents have been reduced to living in the bush, unable to do farming.    In CAR, UNHCR assists more than 176,000 IDPs and some 20,000 refugees mainly from Sudan's Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of Congo.