BANGUI – Three United Nations peacekeepers have been killed by unidentified combatants in the Central African Republic (CAR), the international boday said, as the country prepares for a general election and fighting continues between rebels and government forces.
The news came after a rebel coalition called off a ceasefire and said it will resume its march on the capital, following the arrival of troops from Russia and Rwanda to shore up the government of the resource-rich country.
“Three peacekeepers from Burundi were killed and two others were wounded” following attacks on UN troops and Central African national defence and security forces, the UN said in a statement yesterday.
It said the assaults took place in Dekoa, central Kemo Prefecture, and in Bakouma, in the southern Mbomou Prefecture, without providing further details.
UN secretary-general spokesman Stephane Dujarric strongly condemned the latest incident, and called on CAR authorities to investigate the “heinous” assaults.
He also warned that “attacks against UN peacekeepers may constitute a war crime”.
Ahead of the polls, incumbent President Faustin Archange Touadera, 63, has accused his predecessor Francois Bozize of plotting a coup.
Bozize, who is under UN sanctions and barred from running, denies the charges.
On Tuesday, a militia briefly seized the country’s fourth biggest town, before it was retaken by security forces backed by UN peacekeepers.
Broken ceasefire
Rebel groups launched an offensive a week ago threatening to march on the capital Bangui, in what the government described as an attempted coup, but their progress was halted with international help.
However, a three-day ceasefire brokered ahead of the elections fell apart yesterday with the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) announcing that it will resume its push for the capital.
The CPC – whose components are drawn from militia groups that, together, control two-thirds of the country – was created on December 19 by armed groups who accused Touadera of trying to fix the vote.
Clashes resumed yeseterday in Bakouma, about 800km northeast of here, according to UN Minusca peacekeeping force spokesman Vladimir Monteiro.
Minusca said on Thursday that a 300-strong contingent of Rwandan reinforcements had arrived in the country.
Russia, which recently signed a military cooperation agreement with Touadera’s government, has also sent at least 300 military instructors to bolster CAR’s forces ahead of the polls.
Tomorrow’s elections are deemed a key test of CAR’s ability to recover stability.
But a crucial question is whether turnout will be badly affected by violence or intimidation, denting the credibility of the next president and the 140-seat legislature.
Mineral-rich but rated the world’s second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago. – AFP, December 26, 2020
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