The coronavirus pandemic is fuelling another outbreak in CAR: one of xenophobia which threatens to disrupt peacekeeping operations, reduce aid activities and reignite sectarian fighting, according to senior UN and humanitarian personnel. Here’s a sample of what’s going on /1

Conspiracy theories and alarmist rhetoric in parts of CAR’s media is stoking animosity. One tabloid has accused France of using coronavirus “to destabilise French-speaking African countries”. Another rages about “a genocide against Central Africans”

Due to security threats provoked by the pandemic, the UN peacekeeping mission has extended its curfew on employees after “recent incidents of verbal aggression & intimidation as well as risks of stigmatization of UN staff, intl NGOs, humanitarian actors”, acc to an internal memo

Public opinion has hardened against foreigners since an Italian missionary was identified as CAR’s first case. Why’s this a problem? Aid groups provide around 70% of CAR’s health services; a serious backlash could shut down activities and impact the most vulnerable. OCHA warns:

Displaced people face being denigrated as virus-spreading outsiders, as do members of CAR’s Muslim minority — long marginalised as ‘Arab foreigners’. Growing tensions in this volatile environment could lead to fresh clashes. OCHA again:

A highly charged atmosphere helps anti-foreign sentiment flourish. External actors (France, China, Russia, regional neighbours) jostle for influence here. Support for the UN mission Minusca is low, not helped by a recent smear campaign that's started calling it “the Minuscavirus”

Fears of coronavirus in CAR are understandable and fake news is a symptom of these anxieties. It's one of the world’s poorest countries and unprepared to deal with an outbreak. Sprawling shantytowns & overcrowded IDP camps present the perfect conditions for pathogens to spread

But rabble-rousers and scaremongering on social media aggravate these fears. One provocative commentator in CAR has taken to Facebook, emphasising the foreign nationality of infected UN employees and threatening to publish their names “to protect the homeland”

As one Minusca official told me: “Of course there’s frustration. People’s everyday lives are difficult. They suffer from armed conflict, TB, malaria, now all of a sudden there’s something called coronavirus…All of that contributes to tension. We need to understand that tension"

And inflammatory comments by those two French doctors, who proposed Africa as a testing ground for coronavirus vaccines, don't help and only exacerbate the impression of Western, neo-colonial disdain for the continent

How this crisis unfolds in CAR is anyone's guess. Less than a dozen confirmed cases suggest the outbreak there is in its infancy. But testing equipment is in short supply; more cases are suspected to be going under the radar.