13 May, 2017
The UN called the ambush, which also left nine Moroccan troops and one Cambodian soldier injured, the "biggest attack in the vehicle so far".
A Moroccan peacekeeper has been found dead after a convoy of United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) was attacked by armed men, said a United Nations spokesperson on Thursday.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission, launched in 2014, now has more than 12,000 troops deployed.
The ceremony at the Mission's headquarters in in the capital, Bangui, was attended by senior Central African Government officials, the diplomatic corps, humanitarian community representatives and hundreds of deeply saddened United Nations personnel in auto, the Mission reported. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Anti-Balaka militias, composed primarily of Christians, have been conducting violent activities and atrocities since 2013.
A Cambodian soldier serving in the MINUSCA mission was killed during an exchange of gunfire and ten other peacekeepers were wounded.
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) held a memorial ceremony today in honour of five peacekeepers who lost their lives after their convoy was attacked in the south-eastern part of the country earlier this week. The diamond-rich but poverty-stricken nation has been in crisis since late 2012, when inter-religious violence broke out between Muslim and Christian rebel groups.
Eight fighters from the Christian anti-Balaka rebel group were also killed, he said.
Despite significant progress and successful elections, the Central African Republic still suffers instability and sporadic unrest.
Amnesty International and civil society groups in the Central African Republic launched a national campaign Thursday urging authorities to tackle what they called "a deeply entrenched culture of impunity which has prevented thousands of victims of human rights abuses and crimes under international law from receiving any form of justice".