A committee set up by the government of the Central African Republic to oversee implementation of recommendations made at the end of a national reconciliation forum in mid-October has revised the country's transition calendar. A communique read on Sunday on state-owned Radio Centrafrique by the committee's chairperson, Catherine Samba-Panza, said the country's constitutional referendum would now be held in September 2004 instead of mid-2004.

The UN-NGO humanitarian coordination body in the Central African Republic (CAR) has set up a commission to identify all internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled war-ravaged parts of the country to Bangui, the capital, according to a local UN official.

Some residents recently uprooted from their homes by fighting between rebels and forces loyal to the government in the capital have started to return from village refuges along the 80-km road leading north to the town of Boali, an official of the UN Children's Fund told IRIN on Sunday.

Medical technicians have identified the presence of hepatitis E in the northern suburbs of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), after three months of uncertainty.