October 9, 2006
Posted to the web October 15, 2006
Thousands of people have fled their homes around the town of Wandago in northern Central African Republic over the past three weeks after an outbreak of fighting between government troops and rebels, witnesses said.
Humanitarian officials in Bangui said they had reports of people fleeing the conflict, but aid workers were not immediately able to confirm the number of people involved.
Jacques Gonemandji, a motorist who arrived in Bangui from Kaga-Bandoro, a town near Wandago, said on Saturday thousands of people had run into the bush or sought refuge in neighbouring towns.
There are thousands of them who left their villages to avoid being caught by fighting between armed bandits and the regular army in the region, he said.
Some villagers who could not move southwards had fled to neighbouring Chad, he added.
Fighting erupted afresh after the army sought to flush out rebels who have been operating in the area since the end of July.
Army spokesman Lt. Benjamin Banga-Bekoue said late on Sunday the army was battling armed bandits and that a junior army officer had been killed in a rebel ambush on Friday. An army sergeant was killed in another ambush earlier last week, he added.
The latest attacks on the army appear to confirm widespread speculation that the rebel group Arm e e Populaire pour la Restauration de la R e publique et de la d e mocratie (APRD) is active in the northwest.
On 2 October, L'Hirondelle, an independent daily, published a communiqu e from the APRD that claimed 22 government troops had been killed in three different encounters with APRD fighters in the north since 23 September. The APRD is headed by Bedaya N'Djadder, a former gendarme who defected from the service.
Missionaries in the northwestern town of Bozoum, capital of Ouham-Penda Province, said armed men in military uniform were operating in the area.
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