BFF-53 UN peacekeeper killed in Central African Republic

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UN peacekeeper killed in Central African Republic

BANGUI, Central African Republic, June 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A Burundian
soldier in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR)
was killed late Sunday in a clash in the centre of the country, UN sources
said.

The fighting occurred in the town of Bambari, according to UN sources
there and in the capital Bangui. A CAR soldier was also injured.

The death came a week after a Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed and seven
others were wounded when their patrol was ambushed in the village of Dilapoko
in the southwest Mambere-Kadei prefecture.

The UN force, known by its French acronym of MINUSCA, has been in CAR
since April 2014, tasked with assisting to stabilise the country after a
brutal sectarian-tinged civil conflict that France helped to dampen.

It is one of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping operations and currently has
11,000 troops and 2,000 police in a complement of nearly 13,500 people.

However, the mission is struggling to contain militias who control most of
the country’s territory and often violently fight each other. Five UN troops
have now been killed in the CAR this year.

Sunday’s attack was carried out by a group that calls itself the Union for
Peace in CAR (UPC), a gendarmerie official said in Bambari, adding that
several militiamen were killed during the three-hour gunfight.

Bambari lies at the crossroads of several rival zones of militia
influence.

MINUSCA intervened in the city in 2017 to force out the UPC, but the group
went on the attack last month, targeting police buildings and the UN
mission’s base there.

The offices of nine NGOS and the National Refugees Commission (CNR) were
also pillaged, according to the UN.

BSS/AFP/FI/1834 hrs