A “cattle war” is raging amid sectarian violence bloodying the Central African Republic, with farmers kidnapped or murdered and reprisal strikes staged against rival villagers, while herds are massacred by grenades or machine-gun fire, and cows are stolen.
The violence is the most recent reverberation of unrest following the March 2013 overthrow of former Central African Republic president Francois Bozize by Muslim Seleka rebels in favor of their leader, former Central African Republic president Michel Djotodia.
Djotodia was forced to step aside in turn for failing to quell sectarian violence between Seleka members and Christian militias known as the Anti-Balaka, with deadly clashes between the two sides erupting nationwide over the past two years.
The cattle war chapter of the conflict has primarily claimed the lives of Mbororo livestock farmers — members of the Muslim Fula ethnic group caught between Anti-Balaka and Seleka factions.
“When the Anti-Balaka arrived in the west, they targeted the Mbororo and their animals. They used grenades to kill cattle, fired Kalashnikovs into herds and massacred our families. My entire herd of 300 cattle, my wife and four children were wiped out,” said Maloum Bi Issa, a cattle farmer who fled for Bangui after the attack.
“Before, there were cattle everywhere in the country,” he said.
According to estimates by the Fula minority in Bangui, about 1 million cattle have been massacred or stolen, and about 1,000 livestock farmers killed from the nation’s total Mbororo population of 40,000. Thousands more breeders have fled with their herds for neighboring Cameroon, Chad or Sudan. The result has been reduced beef supplies, and a hungry market for those selling stolen cattle.
Targeting cattle within the nation’s religious strife inflicts direct economic damage.
Trade in the livestock is a major source of income for about 300,000 people in the nation of 5 million, and constituted more than 10 percent of GDP in the 2000s, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
The value of cattle has caused herds to be alternatively pillaged or massacred by raiders in virtually all sectors of the nation’s north and west. That campaign has choked off supplies to Bangui, causing the PK 12 cattle auction and slaughterhouse to the north of the city to be shuttered.
“Herd figures have dropped by 77 percent compared to levels before the crisis, due to mass slaughter and theft,” the UN organization said.
“No one in Central Africa today can deny they’ve eaten beef sold by the Anti-Balaka,” a deputy prefect said under the condition of anonymity. “Entire neighborhoods were supplied [that way], especially in north Bangui.”
Some justify that trade as belated compensation.
“It’s the fruit of the victory over the people who killed our parents, raped our mothers, our sisters, our wives and destroyed our belongings,” said Severin Ndotiyi, a former Anti-Balaka militant also known as “Satan.”
The flight of so many livestock farmers has modified the way abuse is being meted out. According to an inquiry by the UN agency, armed groups that no longer steal cattle are racketing breeders by demanding protection money.
“Some farmers are at times held against their will by the Anti-Balaka so they won’t lose an important source of their revenues,” the organization said.
“When farmers manage to escape areas controlled by the Anti-Balaka, the latter don’t hesitate to attack non-governmental organizations, livestock dealers and local populations to steal their belongings, which poses real security problems,” it said.
The movement of displaced farmers has also disrupted land distribution in migratory herding zones.
“Restored security will not mean an automatic return of breeders to their former areas,” the organizations said.
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