I crouched on the make-shift tent floor across from Fane Abdelkkarim Arame, a 70 year old grandmother sheltering at L’ Ecole Liberty in the town of Bossangoa, Central African Republic. She recounted the atrocities she had seen pass in the final months of 2013. She talked and cried surrounded by her families’ belongings, those that they were able to grab before anti-Balaka militants had destroyed their home weeks before. Inter-religious fighting had left hundreds of civilians dead within the town and thousands more throughout the country. Her words spoke of the circumstance of thousands of others, Christian and Muslim civilians whom had become the victims of a vicious cycle of revenge attacks between the two communities. The testimonial of Fane is tragic but acts as an important record of events that have passed in a country still in the midst of crisis and in need of urgent aid from the international community.

“Ever since the French and FOMAC forces have arrived, the anti-Balaka continues to burn our houses. We can’t step back in our own quartier now, it’s been taken. On the 5th of December I saw 18 bodies, cut into pieces. It was horrible. I have had 4 of my own relatives killed. We grew up in this country, my grandparents are Central African and we were here before independence, we have seen 6 regimes come and go. We don’t have anywhere else to go. We tried to go to Bangui but on the road the anti-Balaka stopped our vehicle and killed my uncle and cousin. We were too scared to go on so turned back. The most important thing for us is security and a situation where we can live like we did before in harmony with the Christians. I don’t care so much that my home is burnt, I just want to have some security reinstalled so we can go on with our lives. We have fear in our stomachs every day when we wake up, last night we did not sleep were so scared of an attack. I gathered all the children together and we stayed awake till the sun came up.”