Three UN peacekeepers have been killed by unidentified combatants in the Central African Republic (CAR), the UN said, as the country prepares for a general election, and fighting continues between rebels and government forces.
The incident occurred after a rebel coalition called off a ceasefire and said that it would resume its march on the capital.
Russian and Rwandan soldiers have arrived to shore up the government.
Photo: AFP
“Three peacekeepers from Burundi were killed and two others were wounded,” following attacks on UN troops, and Central African national defense and security forces, the UN said in a statement on Friday.
The assaults took place in central Dekoa and in southern Bakouma, it said, without further details.
UN Secretary-General spokesman Stephane Dujarric strongly condemned the incident, calling on CAR authorities to investigate the “heinous” assaults.
He said that “attacks against United Nations peacekeepers may constitute a war crime.”
Ahead of the elections, 63-year-old incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadera has accused his predecessor, Francois Bozize, of plotting a coup.
Bozize — who is under UN sanctions and barred from running — denies the charges.
On Tuesday, a militia briefly seized the CAR’s fourth-biggest town, before it was retaken by security forces backed by UN peacekeepers.
Rebel groups a week ago launched an offensive, threatening to march on the capital Bangui, in what the government described as an attempted coup, but their progress was halted with international help.
However, a three-day ceasefire brokered ahead of the elections fell apart on Friday, with the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) announcing that it would resume its push for the capital.
The CPC — whose components are drawn from militia groups that, together, control two-thirds of the country — was created on Dec. 19 by armed groups who accused Touadera of trying to fix the vote.
Clashes resumed on Friday in Bakouma, about 800km northeast of Bangui, said Vladimir Monteiro, spokesman for the UN’s MINUSCA peacekeeping force.
On Thursday, MINUSCA said that a 300-strong contingent of Rwandan reinforcements had arrived in the country, while Russia, which recently signed a military cooperation agreement with Touadera’s government, has also sent at least 300 military instructors to bolster the CAR’s forces ahead of the polls.
Today’s elections are deemed a key test of the CAR’s ability to recover stability.
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