Ethnic cleansing proof discovered, UN says

Death toll of 3,000 to 6,000 a ‘radical under-estimate’ of Central African casualties

A United Nations commission of inquiry says it has found evidence of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Central African Republic, but it couldn’t prove that genocide has occurred amid months of unprecedented sectarian violence that left thousands dead.

The commission’s final report, released Thursday, also said that while death toll reports range from 3,000 to 6,000, any such number is a “radical under-estimate” of the people killed in the vicious fighting that continues among Christians and Muslims in the impoverished, landlocked nation.

Mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in Central African Republic in March 2013, overthrowing the president of a decade. Their leader stepped down in January 2014, setting off a series of reprisal attacks by the anti-Balaka (anti-“machete”) militia, who are Christians and animists.

The three-member commission of inquiry accuses both sides of war crimes and crimes against humanity but accuses the anti-Balaka militia of ethnic cleansing of Muslims. It warns that “the principal actors clearly retain a significant capacity to reignite the situation and trigger a renewed cycle of killings.”

Thousands of Muslims have fled Central African Republic, a forced and deadly displacement that the UN has described as ethnic cleansing. The UN has classified the chaos as a top-level humanitarian crisis, just one of four current ones around the world along with Syria, Iraq and South Sudan. Meanwhile, a fragile transitional government is trying to hold elections by an August 2015 deadline.

AUN mission took over peacekeeping duties from an African Union force in September, but it faces an enormous task: bringing peace to a country with some 4.6 million people.