Refugee Crisis Worsens in Central African Republic, U.N. Agencies Report Andreea Campeanu/Reuters Smoke rises from a neighborhood in Bangui damaged in sectarian attacks on Friday. GENEVA - Spiraling violence between Christian and Muslim militias across the Central African Republic has displaced more than 700,000 people and pushed tens of thousands more into neighboring countries, United Nations aid agencies said Friday. The agencies also reported spreading sectarian attacks and reprisals, some of them targeting children. International action to quell the violence is urgently needed "to prevent the Central African Republic from plunging into disaster," Navi Pillay, the top human rights official at the United Nations, said in a statement released Friday. She warned that reports that armed elements from neighboring countries were becoming involved in the crisis added to the risk that it would spin out of control. Fighting in the capital, Bangui, has forced more than 200,000 residents, or roughly a quarter of its population, from their homes, about 40,000 of them huddling for safety near the airport, now protected by French troops. The others are scattered over about 30 other sites, Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva on Friday. Another half-million or more people out of a population of 4.6 million have fled from their homes in other parts of the country, he said, adding a displacement crisis to a list that includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Syria and puts 2013 on course to set a record for the number of people displaced by conflict, surpassing the 7.6 million reported the previous year. Around 75,000 people have fled to neighboring countries, most crossing the Bangui river into Congo, but others have entered the Republic of Congo and a small number have fled north into Chad, Mr. Edwards said. Seleka, the mostly Muslim rebel force that has controlled the country since overthrowing President François Bozizé in a coup in March, has become an unchecked force, perpetrating massacres and looting across the country, driving thousands of people from their homes. France has 1,600 troops deployed in the country to help restore order, and the African Union is preparing to nearly double the size of its peacekeeping force to 6,000. But Ms. Pillay warned that Christian militias known as anti-Balaka groups "appear to be getting more heavily armed and organized by the day," fueling the danger of sectarian violence. At least 12 Muslims were lynched in Bangui in the last 10 days, according to the United Nations human rights office in Geneva. It said that many more had died in attacks and reprisals in western districts and that a monitoring team in the country had recorded widespread abuses by militia on both sides including sectarian killings, attacks on hospitals, sexual violence and destruction of property. Some recent attacks showed armed groups had targeted children, Patrick McCormick, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund reported, saying staff members had confirmed that 13 children had been killed and 60 had been maimed in Bangui and the nearby town of Boali since early December. "We think these are very conservative figures," he said. The United Nations human rights office, acting on a mandate issued by the Security Council this month, is in the process of setting up an international commission of inquiry to investigate human rights abuses. Ms. Pillay said such an inquiry was designed to put perpetrators of human rights violations on notice that "that the international community is committed to holding them accountable." An earlier version of this article misstated the number of sites where many of the displaced are scattered throughout the Central African Republic. It is about 30 sites, not 40.