Central African Republic: Bangui neighbourhood joins battle against virus

Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, is now contending with the spread of COVID-19.

The nation has seen deadly violence since 2013, and the Muslim quarter of the PK5 neighbourhood in capital Bangui has been the epicentre of much of the tension.

Today, it is one of the centres of the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

Moussa Hassabarassoul, community leader and president of the Local Peace Committee, is distributing face masks.

Wearing masks and social distancing are compulsory, but it seems no one is really taking too much notice of the rules.

In late May, he helped bring together several local associations to form a cooperative to make masks at the headquarters of the local peace committee.

The ambitious goal is to make enough to meet the needs of the roughly 5 million people of the Central African Republic.

On 17 June, the cooperative team managed to make an order of 5,000 masks.

Everyday, more and more cases of coronavirus infections are being reported in the country.

According to official figures from Johns Hopkins University, the country now has had over 2,400 confirmed cases and 14 deaths.

Moussa and his team hope that their countrymen will take the pandemic seriously and will protect themselves from contamination.

(Representative Image)