UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- A senior United Nations relief official on Thursday urged the international community to boost support for humanitarian efforts in crisis-gripped Central African Republic (CAR), where nearly half the population requires assistance.
UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ursula Mueller made the appeal in the capital, Bangui, on Thursday at the end of a four-day visit to the country.
"CAR is facing a large-scale humanitarian crisis," she said. "Violence is fast spreading across the country while urgent and critical needs are increasing and should be covered. Civilians continue to bear the brunt of violence and insecurity."
Clashes between the mainly Muslim Séléka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian, plunged the country into civil conflict in 2013.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described the CAR as "a fragile country" that has been devastated by years of conflict and faces both structural and economic challenges.
Mueller said protection will "remain central" to its action there in 2018.
UN and its partners are reportedly seeking 516 million U.S. dollars to meet the needs of nearly two million people in the CAR this year, or roughly half the population.
However, Mueller said, funding for humanitarian operations in the country has declined over the past three years. Meanwhile, the number of internally displaced people nearly doubled in 2017 to 694,000.
The CAR is one of three countries that Mueller is visiting in West and Central Africa. She will also visit Cameroon and Chad in a mission that will wrap up next Tuesday.
