In the Central African Republic, the EU suspends the training of soldiers because of the Russian group Wagner

by

Published on :

The European Union announced on Wednesday that it would temporarily end its training missions for soldiers in the Central African Republic. These can resume when the EU has received “the assurance that the trained Central African soldiers will not be employed by Wagner’s mercenaries”.

The measures taken against the Russian group Wagner are linked. The European Union is suspending its training mission for the Central African armed forces, due to “control exercised by the mercenaries of the Wagner company,” the EU mission in Bangui told AFP on Wednesday (December 15th).

“Due to the control exercised by the mercenaries of the Wagner company over the Central African Armed Forces (Faca), the European Union, concerned about respecting international humanitarian law, has decided to temporarily suspend training actions,” he told the ‘AFP General Jacques Langlade de Montgros, commander of the European Union training mission in the Central African Republic (EUTM-RCA).

>> To read also: “In the Central African Republic, advantage for Moscow and the Wagner group in the standoff with the EU”

“These mercenaries deliver training to the Faca and employ them in operations. Therefore, the temporary suspension of our training aims to avoid any overlap with these mercenaries and to ensure that they do not employ the Central African soldiers that we have. trained, “continued General de Montgros.

Faca training can resume “as soon as we have the assurance that the trained Central African soldiers will not be employed by Wagner’s mercenaries”.

Some 70 European instructors have returned temporarily to their respective countries.

Human rights violations

The Central African Republic, classified as one of the least developed countries in the world by the UN, has been the theater since 2013 of a civil war that has declined in intensity after 2018, even if entire swathes of territories continue to escape power. central Bangui.

The Faca, supported in particular by hundreds of Russian paramilitaries from the Wagner group, according to the UN and France, have led since the beginning of the year a vast counter-offensive against rebel groups, which had tried to overthrow the regime of president Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

According to UN experts, members of the Russian paramilitary group have committed systematic and serious human rights violations.

Moscow officially recognizes the presence of only 1,135 “unarmed instructors” but NGOs operating on the ground, France and the UN claim that some of them are men from the private Russian group Wagner, which denies Moscow.

The EU on Monday sanctioned the Wagner group as well as eight people and three companies linked to it for “destabilization actions” carried out in Ukraine and in several African countries.

The Wagner company is reported in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Russia is present, notably in Mali and the Central African Republic, but it is also active in Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

With AFP