Tensions boil over into violence, as armed men reportedly exchanged fire with UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui.
It came as hundreds of protesters gathered to call for the UN mission to leave, accusing the peacekeepers of not doing enough to protect them.
“We don’t know what MINUSCA’s mission is here,” explained Bangui resident Didier Fabrice Balandegue. “They are present when people are fighting each other and they don’t intervene. We have seen it for ourselves that their mission is useless and it’s in our best interest to ask them to leave.”
The mission was established in 2014, when fighting flared up between Muslim Seleka revels and anti-Balaka Christian militias. The UN troops have been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse, and in the last month, 30 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on refugees by Seleka forces.
