UNITED NATIONS, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched a humanitarian air service in northern Central African Republic where as many as 1 million people have been affected by rebel attacks. The remote north is a lawless area where armed raiders regularly loot villages and terrorize civilians, sending many fleeing into southern Chad. It is near the Central African Republic border with both Chad and Sudan. All three countries have been shaken by conflict or civil war and various rebel groups in all three use neighboring states as bases to launch attacks into the others. The first U.N. flight to the north left Bangui, the Central African Republic capital, for Kaga Bandoro, an area where three weeks of fighting has driven thousands of people from their homes, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. The flight carried representatives of the United Nations, the International Red Cross and private relief groups who hope to assess the situation and plan an emergency response, the office said. Central African Republic, a landlocked former French colony, is one of the world's poorest countries. The air service is managed by the World Food Program and provided by a 10-seat propeller-driven aircraft under a $150,000 grant from a U.N. emergency response fund. Similar programs operate in 15 other countries, including Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. The service began as Central African Republic President Francois Bozize accused neighboring Sudan on Wednesday of sending armed rebels across the border to occupy the northeastern town of Birao, in what is widely seen as a spillover of the violence in Sudan's western Darfur region. There was no immediate reaction from Khartoum, which routinely rejects charges from the Central African Republic and Chad that it backs rebels hostile to their governments.
