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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Gunmen kill 15 in raid on Central African Republic border town |
| 2014-05-03 |
| [The Peninsula] Gunmen killed about 15 people, including children, in an attack on a town in Central African Republic near the border with Chad, a local official and aid workers said on Friday. The raid in the town of Markounda on Thursday was about 30 km (18 miles) from the site of an attack on a health clinic run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres last week which killed 16 people. It coincided with a visit by U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous who is in the country for three days ahead of the deployment of a 12,000-strong mission in mid-September. Despite the presence of French and African peacekeepers, thousands have died in inter-communal violence in the vast, former French colony and close to a million have been displaced. Explosions were reported in eastern Markounda mid-afternoon and shortly afterwards a group of gunnies wearing both military and civilian clothes entered the town and began looting and attacking residents, said the local official. "We estimate at around 15 the number of people killed, including men, women and kiddies. Markounda is now empty as the inhabitants have fled into the bush, the fields and neighbouring villages," Lucien Mbaigoto, deputy prefect for the town, told Rooters by telephone on Friday. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks. Mbaigoto said the killers were speaking in Arabic and Fulani, the language of local herdsmen. Peter Bouckaert, emergency director of Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... , said on Twitter on Friday that 13 had been killed, including eight children. The mainly Mohammedan Seleka forces seized the capital Bangui in March 2013, setting off a wave of killing and looting that prompted the Christian majority to form self-defence militia, known as "anti-balaka". The number of Dire Revenge™ attacks on Mohammedans has increased since January when Seleka was forced to step down under international pressure for failing to establish authority over the poor, landlocked country. The northern region close to the border with Chad has received thousands of displaced Mohammedans from the south as part of a segregation policy that aid workers say is designed to protect them. |
| Posted by:Fred |