UN warns of rights violations in South Africa



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Violence perpetrated by rebel and government forces and their allies in the Central African Republic has claimed more than 1,200 lives over the past year, the UN said on Wednesday, calling the scale of bloodshed and human abuse. “alarming”.

Although the conflict that erupted in 2013 has largely receded since 2018, at least 1,221 people have died from July 2020 to July 2021, including 144 civilians, he said in a statement.

Many other victims could not be identified.

The rights section of the United Nations mission in the country, MINUSCA, “recorded 526 incidents of abuse and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law across the country,” she said. stated in a press release.

By comparison, from July 2019 to July 2020, 880 incidents of abuse and violations of rights were recorded, involving 1,522 victims, including 240 women and 184 children.

The abuses documented over the past year included “extrajudicial and summary executions, torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests and detention …

A coalition of armed groups, the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), is responsible for more than half of the documented incidents, according to the report.

The PCC, created at the end of 2020, brings together several armed groups controlling much of the country and determined to overthrow the government in Bangui.

“The CCP has killed and kidnapped civilians, attacked UN peacekeepers (and) looted the premises of humanitarian organizations,” the UN said.

Central African Republic.  By (AFP) Central African Republic. By (AFP)

But he also lambasted the regular army forces and their Russian allies – nominally “military instructors” – saying they were responsible for 46% of the detailed incidents.

The report called on all parties to the conflict to stop attacks on civilians and demanded a full and impartial investigation into the crimes.

The Central African government did not immediately respond to an AFP request for a response.

Since December of last year, government forces have successfully wrested large swathes of territory from rebel control, with the help of hundreds of Rwandan troops and the support of Russian paramilitaries.

CAR is the second poorest country in the world, according to UN figures, and since 2013 has been ravaged by civil war, although the intensity of the fighting has declined since 2018.

A slight increase in rebel attacks has been observed in recent weeks.

At least six civilians were killed in the northwest of the country near the border with Cameroon on Saturday. Thirteen other civilians were killed in the north in July.

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