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Strange customers in search of souvenirs flock to the Bangui craft market. Dressed in fatigues, some wear a scarf that completely conceals their face. They do not wear any badge. No logo either appears on their pick-ups without number plates and equipped with heavy 14.5 mm machine guns.
If they are also discreet, the famous Russian “instructors” are nonetheless perfectly recognizable in the streets of the Central African capital. Many observers associate them with Wagner, a Russian private military company which operates in Syria, Sudan and Libya, and is closely linked to the activities of Yevgeny Prigojine, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.
They made their entry into the country at the beginning of 2018. Officially, they would be 535, but diplomatic and military sources rather evoke the figure of 1,700 “Russian mercenaries”, part of which provides security for President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.
Their presence has increased in Bangui in recent months. They participated alongside the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) in the counter-offensive against the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), a new alliance of armed groups which greatly disrupted the presidential election of December 27, 2020 by taking control. of the main cities of the country.
Avoid any pursuit in case of burrs
“The mission of the instructors is to train the executives of the Central African Armed Forces”, confines himself to affirming the Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko, implying that these men do not fight. A leitmotif also repeated by Valéry Zakharov, President Touadéra’s very influential adviser on internal security. But, for many, this insistence on making “Instructors” non-combatants, aims above all to avoid any pursuit in case of burrs.
On the ground, the abuses committed against civilians during the fighting against the CPC were numerous, on both sides. The human rights division of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (Minusca), notes that 85% of these abuses are attributable to armed groups, but “State agents and their allies” also allegedly arbitrarily killed civilians, tortured and ill-treated people, and made arbitrary arrests.
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