[Bangla Daily Star] At least 12 people, including children and a pregnant woman, have been killed close to the capital Bangui by Christian vigilantes, a military source said yesterday, amid rising fears of sectarian massacres in the Central African Republic.The vicious attack against the Peuhl Mohammedan minority, in which a pregnant woman was disembowelled, came as the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
is about to approve the deployment of an African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
force to restore order in the lawless country.
"The assailants were seen not far from the camp and they returned in the night to attack the herdsmen who were there with just knives," a military source said of the attack about 95 kilometres (60 miles) from the north of Bangui.
"Among the victims were children and a disembowelled pregnant woman. Some managed to escape and there are more than 10 maimed who have been transferred to Bangui," the source added.
The Peuhl people are traditionally pastoralist, and are a minority in the impoverished, landlocked nation of 4.5 million people which was plunged into chaos after the March coup by the mostly Mohammedan Seleka rebels.
The Seleka have since been disbanded, but rights groups say the motley crew of ex-rebels have taken to looting and burning villages, killing inhabitants who fail to flee.