BANGUI, Central African Republic — Armed fighters stormed the family’s house at 3 a.m., demanding money and taking everything of value. Then they fatally shot Belvia Salo’s father in front of the 11-year-old girl, who had awoken amid the commotion.
After killing him, as she and her siblings cried, the men raped her mother and abducted her into the night.
The only relative Belvia could think of was an uncle whose home she had visited during a vacation, but it was 8 miles away. So off she went at dawn on foot, along with her 14-year-old sister, Nelyo. Their 5-year-old little brother, Tomte, demanded to know why they were leaving and where were his parents.
“I have not been able to tell him yet that our father is dead,” Nelyo said, recalling the July attack, tears in her eyes.
Belvia and Nelyo now live with more than 18,000 people on the grounds of a Catholic mission in the beleaguered capital, fearful of the nightly attacks on Christian homes by the mostly Muslim ex-rebels who rule the country. Attacks on civilians began not long after the Seleka forces took power in March, and the killings have left an untold number of orphans.
Central African Republic was already one of the most difficult places in the world for children to grow up, said Bob McCarthy of UNICEF. Now the near anarchy has traumatized many youngsters. At least 189,000 — half of them kids — are displaced in Bangui alone.
