A post this week on the website of HCJB Global, an evangelical network of media partners around the globe, reveals the extent of damage experienced by ICDI, Integrated Community Development International, during the recent political unrest in the Central African Republic. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete post.
Fatal Shooting – Abduction – Looting Affect Faith-based Agency in African Coup
(April 4, 2013 – by Ralph Kurtenbach and Harold Goerzen) Already besieged by grinding poverty, the people of Central African Republic (CAR) are enduring further hardship as coup leaders who overthrew the administration of President François Bozizé now face the challenges of running the country.
Séléka (Sango for “coalition”) fighters invaded the capital Bangui on Saturday, March, 24, and the group’s leaders are now reining in renegade members of their rebel alliance, according to Jim Hocking, founder and director of an evangelical development organization that employs more than 100 people in CAR.
Shut down but with hopes of getting a low-power shortwave radio station back on the air again following the coup, Hocking’s agency, Integrated Community Development International (ICDI), counts one dead and several casualties due to the disorder along with material losses approaching US$300,000.
Séléka (Sango for “coalition”) fighters invaded the capital Bangui on Saturday, March, 24, and the group’s leaders are now reining in renegade members of their rebel alliance, according to Jim Hocking, founder and director of an evangelical development organization that employs more than 100 people in CAR.
Shut down but with hopes of getting a low-power shortwave radio station back on the air again following the coup, Hocking’s agency, Integrated Community Development International (ICDI), counts one dead and several casualties due to the disorder along with material losses approaching US$300,000.
The son of an ICDI staff worker, about 28 years old, was shot in the arm and stomach during the fighting. The man had surgery the following day, but it was unsuccessful and he died early Monday, April 1, leaving a wife and three children. “We don’t know the reason for the shooting, whether he was involved in fighting or whether he tried to stop looters or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Jay Hocking, the agency’s communications director, in an email message.
Jim Hocking said a lack of access to medical care and needed medicines contributed to other deaths among his staff members’ families. The 9-year-old nephew of Jay Hocking’s friend, for example, recently died after he fell ill and couldn’t be treated.
Jim Hocking points to the death as “an example of what happens during war. Everything is upside-down. All schools are closed nationwide. All normalcy of the country is gone. People are just trying to deal with today.” Medicines are also hard to come by at the organization’s Bangui clinic, Mercy Care Center.
Speaking of death and illness, Hocking said that “this is probably something that the Africans understand better that we do” in that these harsh realities confront them more frequently. The average life expectancy at birth in CAR is 50 years, according to the CIA World Factbook.
“We have another staff member who directs our orphan care work who is very sick. We can’t get medication to him. He’s in the hospital on IVs,” Hocking related, saying the man’s family cannot tend to his needs or even their own needs for food during these difficult days.
“They can’t find medication, and if they can, it’s too expensive,” Hocking continued. “Banks aren’t open. This is a country without a government. There is a declared president, but nothing is working.”
On Easter Sunday, renegade rebels abducted the son of ICDI staff member Jean Baptiste. As the rebels harassed another worker the following day, the boy slipped off and later returned home.