A peacekeeper from Rwanda was killed during an unidentified armed group attack on a United Nations peacekeeping patrol in the Central African Republic on Monday, according to the U.N.
According to early accounts, the U.N. patrol retaliated with fire and killed three of the attackers, according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
According to Dujarric, the incident took place as peacekeepers were maintaining a protective presence around the village of Sam-Ouandja in the Haute Kotto prefecture of the Central African Republic’s east.
According to him, peacekeepers were sent to Sam-Ouandja last week in response to an armed group’s attack on the town. After the peacekeepers intervened, the armed group left. He said that in order to protect the locals and facilitate relief supplies, the U.N. mission had increased the security cordon surrounding the town over the previous five days.
The incident was harshly denounced by Valentine Rugwabiza, the chief of the U.N. mission. According to Dujarric, she stated that the peacekeepers would remain in Sam-Ouandja and that the mission was negotiating with the local government to send national forces there.
ten years of conflict
Since 2013, when Seleka rebels, who are predominately Muslim, took control and ousted President Francois Bozize, the mineral-rich but impoverished Central African Republic has been plagued by violent intercommunal conflict. Later, largely Christian militias retaliated by attacking both them and civilians in the streets. Untold numbers of people died, and the majority of Muslims in the capital fled in terror.
Peacekeepers were sent out in 2014
Nearly 17,500 uniformed members of the MINUSCA U.N. peacekeeping operation have been stationed there since its deployment in 2014. Its authority was extended for another year, through November.
President Faustin-Archange Touadera was elected to a second term with 53% of the vote after the constitutional court denied Bozize’s bid to run for president in December 2020. However, a rebel coalition allied to Bozize continues to oppose him.
Touadera has been kept in power by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, whose leader last month orchestrated a brief revolt in Russia. Following the rebellion, hundreds of Russian militants will stay in the Central African Republic, according to Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, who spoke to the state-run RT television network.
