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CAR govt says violence plotted to provoke coup

BANGUI – Central African Republic’s transitional government on Tuesday said that several days of violence last week, the most serious in months in which about a dozen people were killed, was part of a purported plot to overthrow the administration.

Without identifying anyone, the government said in a statement that a “coalition of negative forces” distributed money to a faction of the population, urging them to set up barricades in the capital to destabilise the country.

“Heavy and light weapons were also distributed among the population, especially to young people for them to sow terror and demand the resignation of the president of the transition and prime minister”, the statement signed by government spokesperson Antoinette Montaigne said.

The three days of clashes pitting mostly militias, known as anti-balaka, against armed Muslims, forced up to 6 500 to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

The violence was the first major test for the country’s newly deployed UN peacekeeping mission, occurring amid increasing political tensions as anti-balaka leaders and the mostly Muslim Seleka rebels called for interim president Catherine Samba-Panza to step down.

Central African Republic, which is poor despite gold, uranium and diamond reserves, was plunged into chaos when the Seleka rebels seized power in March 2013.

Their rule was marked by abuses that prompted a backlash from the mostly Christian and animist militia known as “anti-balaka”. France sent troops to its former colony and an existing African peacekeeping force was beefed up and transformed into a UN peacekeeping mission.

Seleka leaders were forced to resign in January and a new transition took over led by Samba-Panza. Sporadic inter-communal violence has continued despite the presence of thousands of peacekeepers.

Meanwhile, a top UN official condemned the use of children in sectarian violence that engulfed the Central African Republic’s capital last week, driving 6 500 people from their homes.Claire Bourgeois, the UN humanitarian chief in the strife-torn country, urged militia leaders in Bangui to stop using and targeting children after at least three were killed in the latest clashes that also left a UN peacekeeper dead.

“I confirm the brutal killings of at least three children, including two boys who had been accused of spying and an eight-year-old shot by a stray bullet”, she said in a statement.

At least 10 people died and up to 6 500 were forced to flee their homes in three straight days of clashes after months of relative calm in the capital of the former French colony.

“I condemn the recruitment and the use of children by armed groups”, Bourgeois said.

– Nampa-AFP-Reuters

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