(Reuters) – Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed “right before our eyes,” the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday. The bleak warning came as the country’s foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. Security Council to urgently approve a U.N. peacekeeping force to stop the killing. Widespread violence in the former French colony has claimed thousands of lives since Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim northern rebels, seized power a year ago. Attacks intensified in December when “anti-Balaka” militias drawn from the majority Christian population stepped up reprisals on Muslims. “Since early December we have effectively witnessed a ‘cleansing’ of the majority of the Muslim population in western CAR,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on the crisis in the impoverished and landlocked country. “Tens of thousands of them (Muslims) have left the country, the second refugee outflow of the current crisis, and most of those remaining are under permanent threat,” he said. The council is considering a U.N. proposal for a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop the country from sliding toward what a top U.N. rights official called “ethnic-religious cleansing.” If approved, the U.N. force would likely not be operational before late summer. “Just last week, there were about 15,000 people trapped in 18 locations in western CAR, surrounded by anti-Balaka elements and at very high risk of attack,” Guterres said.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:14:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015