Charlemagne (40) is staying with his family at a displacement site, waiting impatiently to return…

“I am very proud of my name because Charlemagne was a man that promoted education and learning and I am too. As for me, I used to work as an instructor for the visually impaired at the Ministry of Social Affairs. I lost my eyesight due to cataract at the age of 14 but my parents pushed me to continue my education and I won a scholarship to study in Tunisia. My Braille books and my clothes were the only things that I carried with me, when I came to this displacement site at the church of Frères Castors.

It took me a while until I decided to flee. My house was next to a Muslim neighborhood and since we had lived together in peace all along I didn’t believe that I was in danger. After 5 December 2013, though, I started receiving strange visitors at my house. Groups of very young men, asking if I know any Anti-Balaka and trying to test me. It was a Friday morning when I finally told my family that we should leave. Bullets were flying all around our street and people were killed right next to us. Everything that I had gathered through the years was plundered and pillaged –from the satellite dish to my children’s toys.

Now, we are all sleeping under this tent, but the site is not yet adapted to handicapped people. We live thanks to the aid from the humanitarian community, but this isn’t enough to help me send my children to university. I really want to go back and start my life all over again, but I don’t know if our rhythms will ever get back to normal. The center for the visually impaired where I was teaching was also looted and the people coming there dispersed at the displacement sites. In this security situation, how can I tell them to come back?”