Tens of thousands of Christians who have fled violent attack by Muslim rebels are sheltering at a Catholic mission in a town called Bossangoa, about 250 miles north of the capital, Bangui. Last week, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned that the country was on the verge of genocide. CAR is a mostly Christian and animist country, a little smaller than Texas, with a long history of instability. The U.N. says virtually the entire population of 4.6 million is affected by the current crisis, which erupted almost a year ago when an Islamic rebel alliance called Seleka began launching attacks.
Last March, Seleka overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian former army chief who had himself toppled an elected president in 2003, the latest in a series of coups since independence from France in 1960. The rebel coalition installed its leader, Michel Djotodia a Soviet-educated Muslim civil servant as president. In August, a transitional period envisaging elections in 18 months formally began, but elements of the now supposedly-disbanded Seleka are continuing to carry out attacks on Christian civilians, with murders, summary executions, pillaging, sexual violence and church burnings reported. Christian vigilante groups have begun to fight back since September. The U.N. Childrens Fund said on Friday the number of children now fighting, on both sides of the conflict, has risen to an estimated 6,000. Some 400,000 people have been displaced.
Some of the estimated 37,000 people fleeing the fighting who are sheltering at a Catholic church in Bossangoa, Central African Republic
Briefing the Security Council, deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson said the country was experiencing unprecedented Muslim-Christian violence. Traditional harmony among communities has been replaced by polarization and widespread horror. The CAR is becoming a breeding ground for extremists and armed groups in a region that is already suffering from conflict and instability, he said. If this situation is left to fester, it may degenerate into a religious and ethnic conflict with longstanding consequences, a relentless civil war that could easily spill over into neighboring countries. Some call this a forgotten crisis, Eliasson said. The world is haunted by the horrors of crises that we watched from a distance spiral into atrocities. We must never forget.
He laid out several options for the world body, including bilateral, multilateral or U.N. support funded through a trust fund. But he came down squarely behind one proposal to transform a 2,500-strong African-led mission into a U.N. peacekeeping operation comprising an estimated 6,000 troops and 1,700 police personnel. Such a force, he said, would lay the foundation for transparent, accountable and resilient institutions and, hopefully, enhance the international communitys ability to apply political leverage.
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