Thousands of people risk starvation in Central African Republic where raids by armed groups have disrupted subsistence farming and forced displaced people to eat wild roots to survive, a U.N. official said. 

Villages near the impoverished, landlocked country's northern border with Chad have been subjected to violent raids during years of political turmoil, but attacks have worsened in recent months, forcing many more to flee their homes. 

"Thousands of people, including women, children, and the elderly, live in the forest and are forced to eat wild roots to stay alive. This is a humanitarian tragedy," Jean-Charles Dei, World Food Programme (WFP) representative in the capital Bangui, told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday. 

Dei said wild roots could help people survive in the short term but did not make a healthy diet and could be poisonous. 

"We already know that hundreds of children who already had little food are now facing malnutrition and will be more exposed than ever to deadly diseases easily preventable through a normal diet," he said. 

Dei said poor security was hampering aid operations, as was a lack of funding since WFP had secured less than 15 percent of the funds it is seeking for the aid operation. 
"Thousands of people in the north risk starvation, if we do not act very fast, for which we need funding from our donors," he said. 

United Nations agencies are already helping close to 50,000 Central African refugees in camps in southern Chad, most of whom fled violence during a 2003 coup, and have said they need $4.5 million from donors to help that operation. 

Marauding gangs of gunmen have attacked villages on the Central African Republic side of the border since last December, killing dozens of residents, burning houses and crops. 
That has disrupted agriculture in an area where Dei said some 80 percent of people depend on subsistence farming. 

Former army chief Francois Bozize seized power in a 2003 coup with the aid of mercenaries from Chad. After he won elections in May last year, ending two years of military rule, many of these hired guns turned to banditry in the border area. 

But Bozize's government accuses supporters of ousted President Ange Felix Patasse of fomenting the violence, while villagers report being attacked by bandits, armed groups and even government soldiers sent to restore order. 

Dei said he was particularly worried about people in the Paoua region, around 500 km (300 miles) north of Bangui, which was attacked on Jan. 29 by armed individuals. 
Three out of eight villages in the area remain totally empty, their inhabitants living in the forest without access to regular food supplies or shelter, he said. 

"We are today appealing to donors to provide cash or food, which will enable us to put an end to this emergency. If this does not happen, thousands of people are condemned to die, forgotten by the international community," he said.