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Children in the camp for internally displaced persons located at M poko Airport in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, in 2014. UN Photo/Catianne Tijerina
Children and tents along the runway and livestock running across it: that was what passengers first saw when flying into Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, during the 2013-2017 period. At its peak, as many as 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) were living in scrapped planes and squalid conditions in M’poko International Airport, where they had sought refuge from fighting. They couldn’t go home to their old neighborhoods where they would have fallen preys to armed groups. They couldn’t move elsewhere without losing access to water, electricity, and aid. They were stuck. They had to live with no prospects, for years, in scrapped planes.