Crimes against aid workers have reached a record high in the Central African Republic over the past year, a UN official said Thursday after a Red Cross volunteer was killed.<\/p>\n
Claire Bourgeois, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in the strife-torn country, said there had been around 50 attacks on aid workers in the last 12 months as she condemned the killing of a volunteer shot Wednesday in Bangui “while he evacuated the injured”.<\/p>\n
“The number of humanitarian workers who have been killed, kidnapped, and seriously injured in the Central African Republic has reached a level never seen in the country before,” she said in a statement.<\/p>\n
According to the UN, there are currently more than 2 000 aid workers in the country, many of them trying to deal with whole communities that have been forced from their homes.<\/p>\n
A flare up of violence in Bangui this week has seen at least five people – including the Red Cross worker – killed.<\/p>\n
The clashes between armed militants and French peacekeepers in the capital also left almost 40 people wounded, according to one hospital source.<\/p>\n
The country has been in crisis since March 2013 when the mainly Muslim rebel Seleka alliance ousted the president and placed one of their leaders, Michel Djotodia, in power.<\/p>\n
Djotodia stepped down in January, but fighting between rogue rebels and mainly-Christian vigilante groups has continued.<\/p>\n
The conflict has left thousands dead and forced around a million people from their homes.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crimes against aid workers have reached a record high in the Central African Republic over the past year, a UN official said Thursday after a Red Cross volunteer was killed. Claire Bourgeois, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in the strife-torn country, said there had been around 50 attacks on aid workers in the last 12 months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053590,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15923.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15923"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}