The UN mission in the Central African Republic announced to AFP on Friday that it had opened an investigation into unconfirmed information by Bangui on the murders of a dozen civilians attributed to local soldiers and Russian paramilitaries. The civil war, which began nine years ago, has considerably decreased in intensity since 2018 but, faced with a rebel offensive more than a year ago, the power received the reinforcement of hundreds of Russian paramilitaries to repel it, from “mercenaries” of the private company Wagner according to the UN, France and NGOs which accuse both sides of committing crimes against civilians.
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On April 11 and 12, in the villages of Gordil and Ndah, more than 1,000 km northeast of Bangui, elements of the “FACA (Central African Armed Forces) and their allies” (a term used by authorities such as the UN to refer to Russian paramilitaries) carried out an operation and killed “civilians”, concordant security, humanitarian and administrative sources told AFP, on condition of anonymity. Between 10 and 15 civilians were killed, according to these same sources. “An investigation has been opened into this attack by the Minusca”the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic which has deployed some 14,000 peacekeepers in the country since 2014, its communications director, Charles Bambara, told AFP.
“The Minusca will not make any other comment before the end of the investigations”, he added. Asked by AFP, the spokesperson for the Presidency of the Republic, Albert Yaloke Mokpeme replied “not being aware”. In this very poor Central African country, President Faustin Archange Touadéra was re-elected in December 2020 in an election in which less than one in three voters had the opportunity to go to the polls due to insecurity, even if the bloody civil war that began in 2013 has considerably decreased in intensity since 2018. The most powerful of the many armed groups which then shared two-thirds of the territory had launched an offensive on Bangui shortly before the elections and Faustin Archange Touadéra had called on Moscow to the rescue of his helpless army.
Hundreds of Russian paramilitaries had then joined hundreds already present since 2018 and made it possible, in a few months, to repel the rebels’ offensive and then to push them back from a large part of the territories and cities they controlled. But without being able to reinstall everywhere and permanently the presence and the authority of the State. On March 30, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet denounced “serious human rights violations” in the Central African Republic, including “murders and sexual violence” on civilians, committed by rebel groups but also the military and their Russian allies.