Caption
A man is lying in front of a hospital having severe stomach pains after drinking contemned water. He lacks the money to buy any medicine. His wife is inside the clinic and just gave birth to a baby..Violence has now displaced a greater proportion of the population in the north of the Central African Republic (CAR) than in any other country of the world and it comes on top of the world's most oppressive poverty which has seen almost two thirds of CAR's population of 4.2 million survive on less than US$ 1 per day. The CAR hovers: pinched between Darfur and Chad on the one hand, with an armed rebellion and a bankrupt government on the other. A quarter of the country's four million people are struck directly; a further million stand at the edge of risk. Regional dynamics and the success or failure of democratic consolidation and socio-economic recovery make the CAR one of the world's most fragile yet unknown crises, and potentially a hotspot threatening international peace and security in Central Africa. Until 2005, the humanitarian drama in the CAR was one of the world's most neglected emergencies. International attention rose in 2006 but the situation deteriorated severely in the north, leading to greater suffering there. Unless pressing humanitarian need in the north is addressed, it risks seeping south endangering current attempts at recovery. PHOTO JUAN VRIJDAG
