The three men were travelling in the Combattant neighborhood near the airport in the capital Bangui, where French and 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...
troops are headquartered.
A crowd chanting anti-Moslem slogans forced their taxi to stop, and then killed them.
"It was extraordinarily violent. They were executed in cold blood," one witness told Agence La Belle France Presse.
A French army front man confirmed three bodies had been found in the area and said French troops had fired warning shots to force the crowd away from the corpses.
The bodies, which were later taken to the hospital morgue, bore bullet and machete wounds, an AFP correspondent said.
The Central African Republic has been torn by communal violence since the mostly Moslem Seleka rebels overthrew the government in March 2013 and handed power to their leader, Michel Djotodia -- who was himself forced out last month for failing to rein in atrocities by his former fighters.
Violence has continued unabated since then, as vigilantes from the Christian majority have retaliated against the country's Moslems.
United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
chief
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
called Thursday for at least 3,000 troops to reinforce the French and African soldiers, who have struggled to contain the bloodshed.