Rape, torture, murder rampant in CAR: UN report

The UN has voiced alarm over rampant rights abuses being committed mostly by armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR), saying nearly 800 people have fallen victim to rape, torture and murder in eight months.

In its first human rights report on Friday, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) said 775 violations and abuses affecting at least 785 victims were committed between September 15, 2014, and May 31.

According to the 25-page report, which is based on testimonies from victims and witnesses, the population of internally-displaced people, particularly elderly women and children, was among the most affected by the violence.

“Serious challenges remain given the lack of progress towards the disarmament of armed groups and the absence of a functioning state authority in much of the territory,” the MINUSCA report said.

Musa Gassama, director of MINUSCA’s human rights division, called on Central African authorities to change what the report called a “firmly rooted” culture of impunity in the former French colony.

The UN mission also urged authorities to urgently deploy civil servants, including magistrates, throughout the territory “in order to re-establish state authority and the rule of law.”

The CAR has been witnessing violence since a coup ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013.

The coup pushed the country into an ethnic conflict between the Christian and Muslim populations. The largely Christian “anti-balaka” militias were formed to avenge what they called atrocities by the members of the Seleka group, who had been behind the coup, resulting in waves of killing, rape, and pillaging ever since. The conflict has displaced nearly 450,000 people.

The UN report comes just days after France announced the questioning of four of its soldiers who have been accused of raping children in the African country.

Back in April, a UN report revealed that troops from France, Chad and Equatorial Guinea working as UN peacekeepers in the CAR, allegedly engaged in the sexual abuse of hungry refugee children at a center for internally-displaced people in the African country’s capital, Bangui, between December 2013 and June 2014.

On December 5, 2013, Paris invaded the CAR after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution giving the African Union and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country. The foreign invasion has failed to contain the violence.

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