(Adds account of killing, presidency spokesman on skirmish) By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BODOLI, Central African Republic, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Deserted huts, many little but charred shells, are all that remain of Bodoli village since soldiers came here, killing, burning and pillaging. This is one of many villages to have fallen prey to a spate of attacks in the past few weeks by government troops or the armed bands they are hunting down in this remote corner of Central African Republic. "When they come, they loot our belongings, they kill, they burn our houses," one man, too terrified to give his name, told visiting reporters near Bodoli late on Monday. He could not say how many died in the raid by government troops, part of a cycle of violence fuelling a growing humanitarian emergency in the dirt-poor, landlocked country. "We estimate in the northwest that there are about 150,000 people in total in need of assistance," Marcus Prior, regional spokesman for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), said in the nearby town of Paoua. The WFP has many tonnes of food ready to be delivered to needy people, including many hiding out in the bush. But in the last few days government forces in the town ordered aid agencies to halt distribution, citing security. Frederique Etone Begoto, a teacher, told reporters on Monday how he watched government soldiers shoot dead his mother's sister in the raid on Bodoli a month ago. "This country has become unbearable," he said. Later some residents began moving back to Bodoli, but fled again after an attack on a nearby village a few days ago. They scrape by in the bush, going back to the village and its fields to harvest any fruit or crops the attackers missed. Most are too frightened to spend the night there in case the raiders come back. SPREADING VIOLENCE Paoua residents said armed men had ambushed an army unit just north of the town on Tuesday. Cyriaque Gonda, President Francois Bozize's spokesman, said there was no ambush, but said that one Chadian soldier had been injured in a skirmish. Gonda blamed security problems in the area on bandits. The conflict near Paoua began as a hangover from a 2003 army coup which ousted head of state Ange-Felix Patasse and installed President Francois Bozize, who won an election last year. The precise identity of the roving gunmen in this area is unclear. When the attacks started in early 2005, some analysts suggested Patasse's sympathisers were involved, along with Chadian mercenaries who had helped Bozize seize power but then fell out with him and defected. Nearly two years on, there is no sign of any clear political agenda beyond banditry. But in that time widening insecurity spreading from Sudan's violent Darfur region has engulfed eastern Chad, where recent raids by Arab gunmen on horseback against black African villages follow a pattern of ethnic brutality all too familiar in Darfur. Lightning offensives by Chadian rebel groups -- whom Chad's President Idriss Deby says are backed by Sudan -- have also added to insecurity around the three countries' common borders, spreading more guns to fuel conflict. In late October, a new Central African Republic rebel group seized the remote northeastern corner of the country, tucked between the borders of Chad and Sudan's Darfur, prompting calls for an international peace force to secure the frontier zone. Regional bloc CEMAC has promised to reinforce a 380-strong peace force already in Central African Republic, and France has promised logistical help to the army as well as to Chad, which has sent troops over the border into Central African Republic. But any wider international force looks a long way off while Sudan continues to reject a U.N. force in Darfur, making lasting peace a far-off dream for the fearful residents of Bodoli.
