Hundreds of thousands of people in the Central African Republic are at risk of losing their lives in the coming days and weeks — unless the rest of the world does something.
Some of the truly horrific accounts of violence coming out of the country include babies with their throats slit, entire families burned to death inside their homes and roads littered with rotting corpses.
The United Nations has promised peacekeepers, but the mission doesn't get its full mandate until September.
We need to convince the UN Security Council to deploy a strong contingent of peacekeepers before it's too late.
As a permanent member of the Security Council, the United States is perfectly placed to make this happen. We need the US to step up, and fast.
Call on the United States to use their influence to get peacekeepers on the ground now, and stop the slaughter.
Dear President Obama,
In your capacity of permanent member of the UN Security Council, I call on you to exert your maximum influence to ensure that:
-- a UN peacekeeping force is authorized and deployed as quickly as possible — the force should have a robust mandate to protect civilians, include human rights monitoring and reporting components, and rule of law components, which have sufficient resources and civilian expertise;
-- the current peacekeeping forces present in CARare deployed in sufficient numbers and have all the necessary resources, utilized in the most effective and robust manner, and positioned in areas where civilians are most in need of protection;
-- the swift deployment of international police units, to support and build the capacity of remaining CAR police forces;
-- humanitarian assistance urgently reaches refugees and internally displaced persons in need;
-- the arms embargo from the UN Security Council is enforced to prevent the proliferation of arms and weapons in the country.
[Your comments here]
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
