Save the Children in C.A.R.

Country Overview

A humanitarian crisis is affecting the Central African Republic after a violent coup led to widespread looting and displacement. Thousands have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence while health services have been severely disrupted with hospitals and health posts ransacked.

Children now face a range of risks, including the prospect of abuse, exploitation and sexual violence. Children have been recruited into armed groups, witnessed their homes and schools being pillaged and their parents threatened and beaten by armed gangs. Others are still in ‘hiding’ in the most basic of conditions, unable to access essential healthcare services as food reserves quickly run out.

Even before the coup the Central African Republic was one of the poorest and under-developed countries in the world. Life expectancy was the second-lowest in the world at just 48 years, over 15% of children died before their fifth birthday and less than a third of the entire population had access to safe drinking water.

Save the Children in CAR

Save the Children has been working in the Central African Republic (CAR) since April 2013 in response to the huge needs both created and exacerbated by the current conflict. Our teams are on the ground in Bangui, Kemo, Nana-Gribizi and Ouaka - rapidly delivering life-saving health supplies to ransacked healthcare centres to ensure that they have the medications they so desperately need. Our Mobile Clinics visit villages which currently have no functioning health system, in order to ensure that as many vulnerable families as possible have access to basic health care. We have also set-up Child Friendly Spaces so that children who have been affected by the conflict have a safe space to learn, play and receive the psychosocial support they need to move on with their lives.

Donors supporting Save the Children’s work

• UNICEF
• EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO)
• SIDA
• CHF