Red Commissar
8th March 2014, 07:08
CAR has been in an upheaval for sometime since the overthrow of Francois Bozize, who went into exile in neighboring DR Congo. This was at the hands of a grouping of largely Muslim militias who installed one of their own, Michel Djotodia, as president. In the following period the largely Seleka militias that were the main thrust of the overthrow were lashing out against the other ethnic groups which prompted some of the christian tribes to form their own militias to counter them. The back and forth between those militias and the violence they wrecked gave a pretext for France to deploy a mission there to protect their interests and pressured Djotodia out of power, who in turn went into exile in Benin.
A lot of observers expected that with the change in power that the anti-seleka militias would be given free reign to exact revenge on suspected seleka fighters and supporters. Indeed it seems to have come to pass:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/us-centralafrican-un-idUSBREA2520Z20140306
(Reuters) - Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed "right before our eyes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday.
The bleak warning came as the country's foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. Security Council to urgently approve a U.N. peacekeeping force to stop the killing.
Widespread violence in the former French colony has claimed thousands of lives since Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim northern rebels, seized power a year ago. Attacks intensified in December when "anti-Balaka" militias drawn from the majority Christian population stepped up reprisals on Muslims.
"Since early December we have effectively witnessed a 'cleansing' of the majority of the Muslim population in western CAR," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on the crisis in the impoverished and landlocked country.
"Tens of thousands of them (Muslims) have left the country, the second refugee outflow of the current crisis, and most of those remaining are under permanent threat," he said.
The council is considering a U.N. proposal for a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop the country from sliding toward what a top U.N. rights official called "ethnic-religious cleansing." If approved, the U.N. force would likely not be operational before late summer.More in the article. This has also led to some weird cases, like the country's top Imam deciding to hide out with the Archbishop (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/africa/archbishop-and-imam-are-united-across-battle-lines-in-central-african-republic.html) to hide from the mobs.
A lot of observers expected that with the change in power that the anti-seleka militias would be given free reign to exact revenge on suspected seleka fighters and supporters. Indeed it seems to have come to pass:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/us-centralafrican-un-idUSBREA2520Z20140306
(Reuters) - Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed "right before our eyes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday.
The bleak warning came as the country's foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. Security Council to urgently approve a U.N. peacekeeping force to stop the killing.
Widespread violence in the former French colony has claimed thousands of lives since Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim northern rebels, seized power a year ago. Attacks intensified in December when "anti-Balaka" militias drawn from the majority Christian population stepped up reprisals on Muslims.
"Since early December we have effectively witnessed a 'cleansing' of the majority of the Muslim population in western CAR," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on the crisis in the impoverished and landlocked country.
"Tens of thousands of them (Muslims) have left the country, the second refugee outflow of the current crisis, and most of those remaining are under permanent threat," he said.
The council is considering a U.N. proposal for a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop the country from sliding toward what a top U.N. rights official called "ethnic-religious cleansing." If approved, the U.N. force would likely not be operational before late summer.More in the article. This has also led to some weird cases, like the country's top Imam deciding to hide out with the Archbishop (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/world/africa/archbishop-and-imam-are-united-across-battle-lines-in-central-african-republic.html) to hide from the mobs.