France speeds to CAR battle
UN-backed troops engage Seleka rebels as death toll mounts from waves of killings in Bangui
FRANCE rushed hundreds of troops to the Central African Republic this weekend and killed several rebel fighters near the airport of Bangui, the capital, on the first day of their United Nations-backed mission to restore order to the country.
French troops are now patrolling the main roads as warplanes fly low over the city.
Residents and rights groups reported waves of killings in Bangui neighbourhoods.
The Red Cross said it had collected 281 bodies from two days of violence in Bangui and that many more had been killed.
The former French colony has slipped into chaos since mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in March, leading to tit-for-tat violence with “antibalaka” militia formed by the Christian majority. The violence that began on Thursday was the worst the capital has seen during the crisis.
“This horrific cycle of violence and retaliation must stop immediately,” a UN spokesman said, citing cases of rival Seleka and “anti-balaka” militias raiding homes and killing adults and children. “Civilians must be protected.”
France, which halted an advance by al-Qaeda-linked rebels on the Malian capital Bamako this year, began assembling a new 1 200-strong force for the CAR just hours after winning UN backing. The operation was code-named Sangaris, after a red butterfly found in the CAR.
“We are grateful to France, but it’s not normal that it is forced to intervene to save us, like a fireman, 50 years after independence,” Guinean President Alpha Conde told a Paris conference, urging the creation of an “African Nato”.
Paris is keen to distance itself from the system of “Francafrique” whereby, for decades after independence, it supported authoritarian regimes in return for business contracts.
In Bangui, Joanna Mariner, part of an Amnesty International team in the city, said she had reports of pillaging and killing in the third district. “The French are patrolling on the main axes, but the city isn’t yet secure,” she said.
A Reuters correspondent saw 26 bodies in the streets and in courtyards of houses in the first district, close to the centre of Bangui.
Officials at Bangui’s Hôpital Communautaire said wounded people had been streaming in all day. Dozens of bodies had been delivered to the morgue.
Pastor Antoine Mbao Bogo, head of the Red Cross in the CAR, said staff had to stop working as night fell on Friday but the toll was likely to rise significantly when they resumed. “Tomorrow is going to be a monster of a day. We’re going to work tomorrow and I think we’re going to need a fourth day too,” he said.
An aid worker in Bossangoa, about 300km north of the capital, said at least 30 people had been killed there.
A resident in the PK12 neighbourhood said Seleka fighters were “going door to door”. “They are looting and they are killing people. They are calling everyone ‘anti-balaka’,” he said, asking not to be named for his own safety.
Under France’s long-term plan, Paris committed to train 20 000 African soldiers in five years and provide military advisers to the West and Central African regional blocs— where most member states are its former colonies.
But French forces are under pressure to act immediately in the CAR. They were due to be at full strength by today. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said they would initially focus on securing Bangui and the roads leading to Chad and Cameroon. They would also deploy with African forces to other towns, including Bossangoa, where an African peacekeeper was killed after coming under attack from Seleka.
Highlighting the extent of the challenge facing French forces, the aid worker in Bossangoa, where tens of thousands of people, mainly Christians, have fled their homes, said fighting between communities continued there on Friday.
Dieudonne Yanfeibona, a priest at the mainly Catholic mission, said: “Seleka are now burning down the neighbourhood all around. There’s a risk that they will commit a massacre.” Michel Djotodia, leader of the Seleka ex-rebel alliance, is the CAR’s interim president, but he has struggled to control his loose band of fighters, many of whom are from neighbouring Chad and Sudan. —