‘Foreign’ jets bomb troops, Russian base

The Central African Republic threatened on Monday to take reprisals after an aircraft flew in from a neighbouring country in the middle of the night and bombed CAR troops and their Russian paramilitary allies.

The government said the plane targeted a military base and “dropped explosives on the town” of Bossangoa, in the north, but caused only material damage.

The aircraft flew back out of CAR after the raid before three in the morning, the government said in a statement.

Chad lies north of Bossangoa, a town which was in rebel hands until recently, and relations with the CAR have been tense recently.

The government said the air raid “could not go unpunished” and an inquiry had been opened “to determine responsibilities” for the “ignoble act perpetrated by the enemies of peace”.

Cameroon also has a border with CAR, but that lies to the west while South Sudan is much further off to the northeast.

Bangui has accused Chad of allowing armed groups to use its territory as a rear base and to have given asylum to their main leader Francois Bozize who was CAR president from 2003-2013.

N’Djamena in turn alleged a Chadian rebel had sought the backing of Russia paramilitaries in CAR, before rallying to the regime.

“A plane bombed the Russians’ base at 02:50 in the morning,” regional water and forestry director Etienne Ngueretoum told AFP from Bossangoa by telephone.

The CAR plunged into bloody civil conflict in 2012 that was eased by an intervention by former colonial power France, and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission.

In 2020, a coalition of rebels advanced on the capital Bangui, threatening to oust the government.

President Faustin Archange Touadera called Moscow for help and hundreds of paramilitaries were deployed to help repel the threat.

The Russians are described by Bangui as military advisers but by France, the UN and others as mercenaries from the Kremlin-backed Wagner group.