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Africa Subsaharan

Central African troops and Russian mercenaries accused of abuses in anti-rebel offensive

2021-05-02

By Adrienne Surprenant

[NewHumanitarian] Central African Republic’s army and its allies have driven back a rebel group that seized towns around the country amid contested elections in December, but rights groups and residents told The New Humanitarian they committed a string of abuses in the process.

“I cannot file a complaint – against whom would I file it?” said a 32-year-old truck driver who was shot at in December from a checkpoint allegedly controlled by Russian mercenaries and Central African soldiers outside the northeastern town of Grimari.

Four people in the vehicle – including an aid worker – were killed in the incident, which happened as the group of civilians was fleeing Bambari, 80 kilometres to the east.

Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced when the rebel Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC)

...a coalition of major rebel groups in the Central African Republic created in 2020 to disrupt the 2020–21 Central African general election...

swept through the countryside late last year and launched attacks on the capital, Bangui, to force the resignation of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.

...a Social Democrat and former mathematics professor...

Of nearly 200 rights violations documented by the UN's peacekeeping mission between early October and late December, more than 85 percent were attributed to rebel groups, including the CPC, which is led by former president François Bozizé.

The CPC, as far as I can tell, is made up as much by Moslem groups that turned against the Seleke when they split off from it, such as the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic and the Popular Front for the Rebirth of Central African Republic as from non-Muslim groups. (Christian or Socialist/Communist, presumably). Oddly, Mr, Bozize is identified as Christian.

At a makeshift displacement camp The New Humanitarian visited in February, residents spoke of sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and property theft after their villages were attacked by CPC rebels, who also enforced a weeks-long blockade on Bangui.

But UN officials, rights groups, and local residents have also accused CAR’s army – as well as the Russian mercenaries fighting alongside them – of serious human rights abuses during ongoing efforts to recapture towns.

Allegations against the army – known as FACA, and under a UN arms embargo since 2013 – include extrajudicial executions of individuals suspected of belonging to the CPC; targeting of individuals associated with Bozizé’s political party, the KNK; and heavy-handed enforcement of a state of emergency introduced in January.

Reports received by the UN working group on mercenaries have, meanwhile, accused Russian private military contractors of mass summary executions, forced displacement of civilians, torture during interrogations, and indiscriminate targeting of civilian facilities.

Aid workers have also been targeted by the mercenaries, according to an internal UN report seen by The New Humanitarian. The report accuses “Russian elements” of breaking into an international NGO base in the northern town of Bossangoa. Relief items, furniture, and other personal belongings were stolen in the incident in March.

“[CAR] is a country that has known heavy fighting for almost 20 years,” Abdoulaye Diarra, Central Africa researcher for Amnesty International, told The New Humanitarian. “What changed with this current crisis is the implication of new actors standing alongside the army.”
More at the link

Posted by:badanov

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