Protection of IDPs Goes Beyond Humanitarian Aid: Jesuit Entity Official in CAR

Bangui, 23 July, 2025 / 8:40 PM

Internally Displaced People (IDPs) need love and protection that goes beyond humanitarian aid, the Education Monitoring Officer of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in the Central African Republic (CAR) has said.

In a report based on his experience with IDPs in the African country that is experiencing conflicts, Franck Aristide Brou said that displaced people also need respect, and not being “labelled”.

 “What does it truly mean to be protected for the exiled people? It is not just about walls, documents, or aid; it’s about feeling welcomed, respected, not labelled, and loved,” Mr. Aristide said in the Tuesday, July 22 report.

Drawing from his wide experience of dealing with IDPs in France for five years and in CAR, the Jesuit scholar from Ivory Coast said that people in exile understand protection as having to do with trust, friendship and kindness.

For him, many displaced people feel less respected, despite receiving basic necessities like food and hygiene items. He said some have disclosed to him that they need more than just “receiving” and be allowed to share their thoughts.

Mr. Aristide said that the testimonies of some IDPs made him think “a lot about what protection means. It showed a gap between the help people received and how included or valued they felt.”

“The humanitarian system offered legal protection and material aid, but many still felt unheard, powerless, and dependent. They were often seen as objects of pity rather than as people with the ability to contribute and grow,” he said.

The feeling of voicelessness and powerlessness among the IDPs, he said, “created a painful paradox: even though they received support, they didn’t feel truly protected—because real protection, to them, meant more than mere survival. It meant being seen, respected, and included.”

JRS reports that CAR has been experiencing intermittent conflicts since 1960, which, according to the Jesuit entity, “have severely disrupted its social and political fabric.”

People reportedly “suffer the consequences of violence between the rebels and the villagers, as well as between the army and the rebels, who both try to occupy more territory with rich mines of gold and diamonds.”

At the root of the conflict and of the displacement of innocent people, the JRS report further says “lies a profound greed to control the country’s mineral resources, particularly in the East-Central, North-West, and North-Central areas.”

The majority of the population that JRS serves are IDPs in the region of Bangui, Bambari, and Bria.  

The entity reports that in the past three years alone, it has “supported over 20,000 people, offering access to livelihoods, and protection.”

The report highlights the testimonies of some IDPs who express their growth based on the protection that JRS has offered them. A testimony from a young woman whose identity has been concealed shows how she benefited from one of the JRS’s educational programs.

JRS officials say that when the conflict between Muslims and Christians broke out in 2013 in CAR, the woman lost her entire family. She was only 12 years old.

When asked, “What marked you the most about the support from JRS?”, she tells the entity, “JRS built a genuine and human relationship with me—one that was not artificial, but based on trust and respect, to help me rebuild myself.”