BUCHAREST, Romania, May 10 (UNHCR) – Jean-Louis Kialoungou's love affair with Romania began before he even arrived here in the mid-1990s, and over the years the Congolese refugee has become more Romanian than most Romanians.

As Romania prepared for general elections last December, for example, he seemed more concerned than many voters about the fate of his adoptive country. "I asked my colleagues and friends: what do you think about the candidates? Most have no clue!" said Jean Louis, complaining in fluent Romanian about local apathy when it comes to politics.

Highlights

• Joint UN assessment missions to Ndele and Bambari find that the humanitarian situation is worsening in areas of health, protection, food security and education.
  Further assessments planned for Bria and Batalimo.

• Food security has been identified as the priority sector for intervention. While seeds and food are available in markets, people lack financial resources and many households cannot afford basic food necessities and the seeds required to safeguard next season’s harvest.

Around 6.5 million people were newly displaced, almost twice as many as the 3.5 million during 2011. The conflicts in Syria and DRC were responsible for around half of the new displacements.

This is a summary of what was said by the UNHCR spokesperson at today’s Palais des Nations press briefing in Geneva.

African countries hosting large numbers of Rwandan refugees and Rwanda itself have reiterated their commitment to resolving the protracted Rwandan refugee situation in line with a Comprehensive Strategy that was announced by UNHCR in October 2009.

UNHCR operational highlights

• CAR refugees newly arrived in DRC have been pre-registerd by UNHCR in Equateur and Oriental Provinces. The new refugees fled the Southern part of CAR, mainly from the localities of Zemio, Rafai, Tabani, Gurekindo, and Djinikouma, the cities of Bangassou, Zime and Mobaye Mbanga, as well as from Bangui.

• Since February 2013, UNHCR deployed an emergency team in Gbadolite, Equateur Province. The Agency has also established presence in Ango and Bondo, Oriental Province.

Summary: CHF 119,241 has been allocated from the IFRC’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the National Society in delivering immediate assistance to some 128,200 direct beneficiaries and up to 1.1 million indirect beneficiaries. Unearmarked funds to repay DREF are encouraged.

Period covered by this Final Report: 26 March 2012 to 26 February, 2013.

Appeal target (current): CHF 1,238,922.

Appeal coverage: 65%;

Appeal history:

• CHF 95,607 was initially allocated from the Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the national society in responding by delivering assistance.

• The Emergency Appeal was launched on 26 March, 2012 for CHF 1,238,922 for 8 months to assist 13,800 beneficiaries.

• Operations update No 1 was published on 30 May, 2012 to highlight the achievements of the operation then.

Yaoundé, 27 March 2013 – JRS staff were forced to evacuate the Central African Republic (CAR) and suspend projects for the second time in three months due to worsening conflict between government forces and the Séleka rebel coalition.

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