Friends, Associates and Colleagues of Bruce and Greg -
Christian Militias Hunt CAR Muslims
Friday, 31 January 2014
Christian militias have been hunting Central African Muslims from town to town.
BANGUI – Wielding machetes, sticks and rudimentary weapons, Christian militias have been killing Central African Muslims from town to town on the pretext of hunting down ex-rebels from the Seleka coalition.
“He was a Muslim from here, named Abaka,” Benjamin, a Christian man, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Friday, January 31, while standing near the body of a young man whose ears were ripped off.
“They killed him in the courtyard of his house,” he added.
"They" are not only the Christian militias known as the "anti-Balaka" but also ordinary Christians who have gone on the rampage against the few Muslims who have not fled Bangui.
The Muslim man was killed in PK-5 district, the business hub of the capital.
The scene of a dead Muslim was not strange anymore in Bangui districts.
Every now and then, residents from the Muslim minority, like Abaka, are cut down by anti-balaka forces armed with machetes, hammers, slings and spades.
Moreover, numerous Muslim-owned shops attract looters and anti-balaka forces, who are kept at bay by armed Muslims and remaining Seleka forces.
CAR, a mineral-rich, landlocked country, descended into anarchy in March of last year when Seleka rebels ousted François Bozize, a Christian, who had come to power in a 2003 coup.
Earlier in January, Catherine Samba-Panza, the mayor of Bangui, was sworn in as CAR's first female president.
She replaces Michel Djotodia, the country's first Muslim president since its independence from France in 1960, who stepped down earlier this month due to international and regional pressure.
“He looked Muslim”
Looking like Muslims was a sufficient reason to get killed in Bangui district those days.
"He looked like a Muslim with his curly hair and prayer beads around his wrist," witness Victor said, referring to the dead body of a young Christian.
The dead man's legs, sticking out from under the cloth that covered him, were deeply cut above the ankles, "to make the blood flow faster," according to one commentator.
"This can't go on. Things are getting out of hand. It must stop," Victor said softly.
The wife of the victim and one of his sisters were weeping. "I told him not to go out," cried the bereaved spouse.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported increasing deaths and maiming of dead bodies in the capital.
“Our teams are treating large numbers of people for injuries that are the result of extreme violence including maimings from attacks and lynchings,” MSF said in a statement.
"Last week we treated 200 people... for violence-related injuries, 90 of whom needed lifesaving surgery.
The group added that it planned to extend its medical and humanitarian work into the interior, "where our emergency teams report that some villages remain deserted and people are terrorized."
Over the past weeks, anti-balaka Christian militias have raided Muslim homes killing children and women and looting and vandalizing properties.
Inter-religious violence has claimed thousands of lives and displaced a million people in the population of 4.6 million, yet such clashes are unprecedented in the poor, landlocked country.
Along with killing, kidnapping, torture and arbitrary arrest and detention, in the war-torn CAR, a UN investigation found evidences of sexual violence.
A case of cannibalism has been reported too when a video showed a Christian man chewing the flesh of a Muslim driver killed in Christian mob.
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