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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Rebels seize presidential palace in CAR, Bozize flees |
| 2013-03-25 |
| [Guardian Ng] SELEKA rebels in the Central African Republic Sunday said they have seized the presidential palace in Bangui after President Francois Bozize fled the capital. Reports suggested the president had gone to a neighbouring state. La Belle France's foreign minister confirmed his exit. The rebels, involved in an on-off rebellion since December, say Mr. Bozize failed to honour a peace deal. One of the rebel leaders on the ground, Colonel Djouma Narkoyo, was quoted by AFP as saying: "We have taken the presidential palace. Bozize was not there." He said the rebels were planning to move on to the national radio station in Bangui where rebel leader Michel Djotodia planned to make a speech. Intense gunfire was reported as rebels advanced through Bangui. "The rebels control the town," said a front man for the presidency, Gaston Mackouzangba. "I hope there will not be any reprisals." A Gay Paree-based rebel front man said the rebel leadership was telling its fighters to restrain from "looting or score-settling". But Amy Martin of the UN's humanitarian agency, OCHA, told the BBC World Service that residents in the capital had begun looting. "The situation in town is chaotic in the sense than communities are looting properties, private properties, even a paediatric hospital we understand has been looted," she said. "Our main concern right now is at the community level, with the looting and the possible tensions between various ethnic groups." South African peacekeepers who suffered some casualties have retreated to their barracks and are seeking safe passage to the airport, Ms Martin said. She added that Bangui has been without power since Saturday, and that this meant water had also been cut. She also said the situation in the interior thought to be worse than in the capital, more than 170,000 estimated to have been displaced within the country and others fleeing to Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... |
| Posted by:Fred |