Libreville; GABON: Some 14,000 people have fled violence in the Central African Republic and crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo in less than a week, the United Nations said Friday.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was “alarmed” about the displacement of 7,000 people from the southeast of the strife-torn country, adding that they were arriving “into a situation of little help and desperate need.”
“The speed of arrivals and the very limited humanitarian presence in the area mean that people urgently need increased support,” said UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler, adding that most of the refugees were women and children.
He said the agencies capacity for an emergency response is “severely stretched.”
A further 7,000 refugees from the central CAR town of Bambari also poured into DRC, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Violence in Bambari on Monday and Tuesday night led to the deaths of a local NGO worker and midwife, and saw the town’s police station and UN bases attacked by armed men, presumed to be linked to the Union for Peace in CAR (UPC) group.
The UN said it had resumed control of the city on Wednesday.
On Thursday a Mauritanian peacekeeper was killed and eight injured in an attack on a UN convoy near the southeastern town of Alindao.
The number of people from CAR fleeing to northern DRC had jumped even before the latest influx, the UN said, having risen from 102,000 to 182,000 in less than a year.
The UN has around 12,500 personnel deployed in Central Africa as part of its MINUSCA mission, one of the world body’s largest peacekeeping forces.
The state controls only a small part of CAR’s national territory. Armed groups clash in the provinces for control of resources, including diamonds, gold and livestock.
The violence has raised fears that the country, one of the most unstable in the world, could again plunge into a bloody sectarian conflict.
14,000 flee Central African Republic after violence
14,000 flee Central African Republic after violence
- The state controls only a small part of CAR’s national territory. Armed groups clash in the provinces for control of resources, including diamonds, gold and livestock.
- The violence has raised fears that the country, one of the most unstable in the world, could again plunge into a bloody sectarian conflict.
US immigration agents’ training ‘broken’: whistleblower
- The fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis in January reignited accusations that agents enforcing Trump’s militarized immigration operation are inexperienced
WASHINGTON: A former US immigration official said Monday that training for federal agents was “deficient, defective and broken,” adding to pressure on President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown.
Ryan Schwank resigned this month from his job teaching law at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) training academy in Glynco, Georgia, after he said he was instructed to teach new recruits to violate the US Constitution.
The fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis in January reignited accusations that agents enforcing Trump’s militarized immigration operation are inexperienced, undertrained and operating outside law enforcement norms.
The administration scaled back the deployment after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight by officers sparked mass protests and widespread outrage.
Schwank told a forum hosted by congressional Democrats on Monday that he “received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.”
“Never in my career had I received such a blatantly unlawful order,” he said.
He said that ICE cut 240 hours from its 584-hour training program, curtailing subjects such as the US Constitution, lawful arrest, fire arms, the use of force and the limits of officers’ authority.
“The legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective and broken,” he said.
As a consequence, poorly trained, inexperienced armed officers were being sent to places like Minneapolis “with minimal supervision,” he said.
The lawyer’s comments coincide with the release of dozens of pages of internal ICE documents by Senate Democrats that suggest the Trump administration cut corners on training, the New York Times reported.
Schwank said he resigned on February 13 after more than four years working for ICE, and that he felt duty-bound to report inadequacies with the new training program.
