UN commission finds ethnic cleansing carried out in Central African Republic

A United Nations commission of inquiry says it has found evidence of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Central African Republic, but it could not prove that genocide has occurred amid months of unprecedented sectarian violence that left thousands dead.

The commission’s final report also said that while death toll reports range from 3,000 to 6,000, any such number is a “radical underestimate” of the people killed in the vicious fighting that continues among Christians and Muslims in the impoverished, landlocked nation.

The three-member commission of inquiry accuses both sides of war crimes and crimes against humanity but accuses the anti-Balaka Christian militia of the ethnic cleansing of Muslims. It warns that “the principal actors clearly retain a significant capacity to reignite the situation and trigger a renewed cycle of killings”.

Thousands of Muslims have fled Central African Republic, a forced and deadly displacement that the UN has described as ethnic cleansing.

The UN has classified the chaos as a top-level humanitarian crisis, just one of four current ones around the world along with Syria, Iraq and South Sudan. Meanwhile, a fragile transitional government is trying to hold elections by an August deadline.

A UN mission took over peacekeeping duties from an African Union force in September, but it faces an enormous task: bringing peace to a country the size of Texas with some 4.6 million people and little infrastructure. Its vast north was largely anarchic even before the violence erupted and is home to a number of rebel groups.

Mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the Central African Republic in March 2013, overthrowing the president of a decade. Their leader stepped down in January last year, setting off a series of reprisal attacks by the anti-Balaka.

The security situation remains so precarious that the commission of inquiry says it was impossible to visit the central part of the country because of a “hostile and violent atmosphere”.

Its final report, then, focuses on its visits to the capital, Bangui, and the western part of the country.

In September, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court announced she was opening a new investigation into atrocities including murder, rape and persecution during the fighting in Central African Republic since 2012.

The commission of inquiry report recommends that the ICC and courts inside the country should “share the responsibility for attacking impunity”. – (PA)