French soldiers are to start removing weapons from fighters in the Central African Republic (CAR) from Monday, by force if they have to, France says. A 1,600-strong French force has been sent into the CAR, deployed after days of communal fighting claimed 400 lives.
Rebel leader Michel Djotodia seized power in March and armed gangs, largely made up of former rebels, have taken control of the landlocked country.
French troops are now patrolling the streets of the capital, Bangui.
They were sent into the CAR on Friday after the UN Security Council backed a mandate to restore order “by all necessary measures” the previous evening.
France said on Saturday that the African Union would increase the size of its existing force of 2,500 peacekeepers to 6,000.
‘End to impunity’
The UN resolution followed a surge of violence involving Christian self-defence militias that had sprung up after a series of attacks by mainly Muslim fighters from the disbanded Seleka rebel forces.
The Red Cross says 394 people were killed in three days of fighting in Bangui.
Bodies were still being recovered from the streets of the capital on Sunday. A Reuters correspondent described seeing bodies piled up in the local hospital’s mortuary and its corridors.
“The period of impunity is at an end,” French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French media.
“Tomorrow [Monday], everybody will lay down their arms. First we’ll ask gently and if they don’t react, we’ll do it by force. The operation will take some time.”
While French troops were visible on the main streets of the capital, French TV showed footage of former Seleka militiamen still in control of other areas of the city.
Reporters in Bangui described the atmosphere as tense.
Thousands of Christians have sought shelter at Bangui airport, now under French guard, out of terror of the Muslim militiamen, Britain’s Channel Four TV reports. Thousands have also fled to churches and a monastery.
Meanwhile, distressing stories have begun to emerge of the violence that has befallen the country in recent days.
Relief agencies told Associated Press that ex-Seleka fighters had dragged nine wounded young men they believed to be part of a Christian militia out of a Bangui hospital and killed them.
The Red Cross says bodies are still being found and many of the victims have been children, according to the UN’s children agency.
One distraught young girl screamed that her parents had been killed. “We’ve become orphans. Why? They killed my father. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
The bloodshed has not been confined to the capital.
The BBC’s Thomas Fessy, in the northern town of Bossangoa, has described how a number of people were killed when a Christian militia attacked the house of an imam, in a Muslim quarter, where dozens of people had sought shelter.
The attackers chased people down, he says, and bloodstains are still visible.
People’s homes in the town are deserted. Some 40,000 Christians have sought refuge around a church. About 7,000 Muslims are stranded at a school located on the other side of the town.
‘Not my men’
The French defence minister said any former Seleka fighters loyal to interim President Djotodia would have to return to barracks. The rest would have to surrender their weapons.
Mr Djotodia has said he cannot do anything to bring to order fighters who did not join the army when he took power. “I’m in control of my own men. Those I don’t control are not my men,” he said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday that as many as 9,000 peacekeepers would be required to move into the CAR, and he hoped they would eventually become a United Nations operation.
An estimated 10% of CAR’s 4.6 million people have fled their homes, while more than a million urgently need food aid, according to the UN.
The French mobilization comes hard on the heels of an operation in Mali against Islamists linked to al-Qaeda who had seized control of the northern half of the country and were threatening the south too.
Source: BBC News
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