Central African Republic: 13 civilians killed 300 kilometers from Bangui

Published on : 07/23/2021 – 01:49

Thirteen civilians were killed Wednesday in the Central African Republic, 300 kilometers north of the capital Bangui, said Thursday, July 22 in a UN statement, which did not specify the circumstances of the attack or the identity of the attackers.

A United Nations mission patrol in the Central African Republic (Minusca) “confirmed the discovery of 13 lifeless bodies in Bongboto”, 300 kilometers north of Bangui, the statement said. “The dead are all civilians,” Lt. Col. Abdoulaziz Fall, spokesman for Minusca, told AFP.

The Central African Republic, the second poorest country in the world according to the UN, has been ravaged since 2013 by a civil war which has nevertheless declined considerably in intensity since 2018.

The UN has called for an investigation into the circumstances of the death of the thirteen civilians. “La Minusca will help shed light on this unfortunate incident and stands ready to support the government so that the alleged perpetrators of these heinous crimes are identified,” the statement said. The UN “seeks the cooperation of the government in this regard,” the statement concluded.

The rebels accused

The government, for its part, accused the elements of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), created in December 2020 to try to overthrow the regime of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, of being at the origin of the attack.

Government forces have succeeded since the end of December 2020 in taking back from the rebels the towns and a good part of two-thirds of the country which they had controlled for several years, mainly thanks to the reinforcement of Rwandan soldiers and the presence of hundreds of Russian paramilitaries fighting in their sides.

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 security group Wagner. that Moscow denies. According to the UN, the Russian “instructors” committed with the Central African army “violations of international humanitarian law”, including “indiscriminate assassinations”.

With AFP