28 May, 2017
A United Nations peacekeeper was killed at the weekend, the sixth in a week, in an attack in Bangassou by the mainly Christian anti-Balaka group from vehicle.
This prompted MINUSCA to promptly deploy extra troops to fend off further attacks with Verhoosel reporting that the town had been partly secured early Sunday evening.
A spokesman for the United Nations mission said the situation is extremely deplorable and they are doing everything to rapidly retake control of Bangassou.
On May 14, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed outrage over the attacks which left six peacekeepers dead in an area that was previously free of conflict. However credible sources have confirmed an undetermined number of civilian casualties.
The UN agency said that DR Congo, which is also rife with violence, as of end March was hosting 103,000 Central African refugees.
Many of those fighting are believed to be child soldiers who have been drugged.
The members of the Security Council called on the Government of the Central African Republic to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice. MINUSCA recalls that acts of violence on ethnic or religious grounds may constitute crimes under worldwide law subject to prosecution in domestic or global courts.
"We found 115 bodies and 34 have been buried", Antoine Mbao Bogo told Reuters by phone from the capital Bangui.
Despite worldwide efforts to calm the situation in the landlocked African nation, ethnicand religiously-motivated violence has continued to erupt over the past four years.
Recent clashes have centred on diamond-rich central and southern areas of the country, with rival militias battling among themselves to control them, aid workers say.
These areas of Central African Republic did not experience major violence during the sectarian bloodshed that erupted in late 2013 and ultimately forced almost all of the Muslims in the capital, Bangui, to flee to the country's north and beyond to neighbouring Chad. More than 200 people have been killed.