Zemio is a city cut off from the world. In this remote area of south-eastern Central African Republic, few convoys pass and supplies are difficult to come by. Infrastructure barely exists and illegal checkpoints manned by armed men litter the roads.

Owing to conflict, more than 40 000 people are displaced in the area, and at least 30 000 people have been forced to flee to neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to the government, the Haut-Mbomou region, where Zemio is located, has the highest HIV prevalence in the Central African Republic: at 12%, more than triple the rest of the country. 

But community antiretroviral therapy groups, or CAGs, set up in 2016 by Medecins Sans Frontières, are helping people living with HIV to support and help each other.

In Zemio, the CAGs represent hope in a forgotten conflict.