Tunisian peacekeepers sent to the Central African Republic for the first time

Published on : 09/22/2021 – 03:36

One hundred and twenty Tunisian peacekeepers landed on Tuesday September 21 for the first time in the Central African Republic to strengthen the UN peacekeeping mission (Minusca) in this poor country in civil war for more than 7 years, reported an AFP journalist in Bangui.

It is the first contingent of soldiers deployed by Tunisia within the Minusca, only a few police officers from this country participating until then in the international force.

These soldiers of the Tunisian Air Force are part of a progressive reinforcement of 3,000 peacekeepers decided by the UN Security Council on March 12, and it is the second contingent deployed in this context after a group of 300 Rwandan soldiers in early August. La Minusca has some 15,000 people in this poor Central African country.

The Tunisians make up a “helicopter unit”, General Paulo Maia Pereira, Deputy Force Commander of Minusca, told AFP, specifying that the Tunisian helicopters will arrive in a few days.

These soldiers arrive less than a week after 450 Gabonese peacekeepers, accused of sexual abuse, were withdrawn from the UN peacekeeping force. Charges of sexual crimes and offenses against peacekeepers are recurrent in the country.

A civil war continues in the Central African Republic

La Minusca was deployed by the UN in April 2014 to try to end the bloody civil war that followed a coup the previous year against then-president François Bozizé.

The fighting that followed between the coalition of armed groups that had overthrown him, the Seleka, predominantly Muslim, and militias supported by the deposed head of state, the anti-balakas, dominated by Christians and animists, peaked in 2014 and 2015.

The civil war continues today but it has considerably decreased in intensity since 2018. However, armed groups still occupied more than two-thirds of the country at the end of 2020.

Some launched in December an offensive against the power of President Faustin Archange Touadéra on the eve of the presidential election. The latter was finally re-elected on December 27 and his army, thanks to the support of hundreds of Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan soldiers, has today largely reconquered the territory.

With AFP