By Tansa Musa YAOUNDE, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday began distributing food aid to some 26,000 refugees from Central African Republic who have fled to neighbouring Cameroon to escape relentless attacks by rebels and bandits. The refugees are mainly nomadic Mbororo cattle herders who have fled in waves since 2005 after their women and children were kidnapped for ransom and their livestock stolen by rebels in Central African Republic's remote northwest. "Most of the Mbororos crossed the border on foot carrying their few remaining possessions, while a small number managed to save their cattle which continue to graze in Cameroon," the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a briefing note. UNHCR, which is coordinating a relief operation involving the World Food Programme and other aid agencies, said the refugees were living in more than 50 sites spread across thousands of square kilometres on the Central African border. It estimated that 15-18 percent of infants among the refugees were malnourished and that in some areas, the rate of infant mortality was six to seven times the threshold normally used to denote an emergency situation. Central African Republic, a landlocked former French colony which languishes at the bottom of most human development indices, has suffered decades of instability and military coups since it won independence in 1960. The insecurity has been heightened by the spillover of the conflicts in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region and in Chad, where Darfur-based Chadian rebels fighting President Idriss Deby have used Central African Republic as a staging post. Humanitarian agencies estimate about 290,000 Central Africans have been forcibly displaced in the last 18 months, including 78,000 who have crossed into Cameroon, Chad and Sudan. The International Committee of the Red Cross is one of few aid agencies still operating in northwestern Central African Republic, where the United Nations suspended operations after a French aid worker with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was shot dead in June. UNHCR said there were fears the imminent start of the rainy season as well as insecurity caused by banditry along the border could hamper the distribution of food, blankets, mosquito nets and medicine. But it said the operation had begun on time on Wednesday morning. "Distribution started at the Gbiti site, about 140 km (88 miles) east of Bertoua ... where there are 2,685 refugees, and at Ndokayo with 1,128 refugees," Jacques Franquin, UNHCR representative in Cameroon, told Reuters in the capital, Yaounde. "Several truck loads of aid have already left from these localities to neighbouring sites," he said. The U.N. World Food Programme was preparing 2,997 tonnes of cereals, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar and salt to supply the refugees for six months while the U.N. children's agency UNICEF would take care of malnourished children, UNHCR said.
