By Megan Davies
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Central African Republic hasbeen hit by an upsurge in attacks by armed bandits, with up to100,000 people forced out of their homes fleeing such attacks,the United Nations said on Friday.
The attacks, which have escalated since early in the year,have been in the north of the former French colony, the U.N.Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) saidin a statement.
A trend in recent months has seen bandits burn down wholevillages, often in revenge for resistance by villageself-defence groups, OCHA said.
The bandits -- typically groups of 10 to 30 armed men --roam the northern areas of the CAR, assaulting and killingtravellers and villagers, kidnapping children and adults,looting property and burning homes.
One incident in April saw bandits torch 57 out of 67 homesin Bogali, a village in the northwest of the country, OCHAsaid.
Of the 300,000 forced from their homes in the past severalyears because of conflict in the country, OCHA said up to athird fled from bandits.
CAR's history since independence from France in 1960 hasbeen marked by brutal dictatorship, revolts and coups.
In recent years, the country's north has increasinglyfallen prey to armed groups as President Francois Bozize'sgovernment has battled rebel factions and the spillover fromthe conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.
Bozize, a former army general, seized power in a coup inMarch 2003. He was elected president in 2005.
Despite being diamond and uranium-rich, landlocked CAR isone of the world's poorest countries with an average income ofjust $350 a year, according to data on the World Bank's Website.
The United Nations estimates 1 million people in CAR havebeen affected by conflict, of whom 108,000 fled intoneighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Sudan and 197,000 areinternally displaced.
The country's population of 4.3 million has an average lifeexpectancy of 44 years, according to World Bank data. A U.N.appeal for $96.8 million this year from the internationalcommunity to tackle the rising insecurity so far is only 36percent funded, OCHA said.
(Reporting by Megan Davies, editing by Vicki Allen)
