The Central African Republic is all but lawless, with just 200 police to
guard 4.6m people from rebel gangs who attack women, kill men and
recruit children at will. Despite repeated warnings, the international
community has done little, even as arms continue to flood into the
country
It was dusk when armed Seleka rebels dragged the teenager from the
road leading north towards Kobe. They pulled her into the jungle and
raped her for several hours. She was abandoned near Route Nationale 10
and, after stumbling into the town of Kaga-Bandoro, was taken to
hospital. "There were five of them raping her until they tore her
vagina. Her family paid the [hospital] expenses until she got well,"
said her friend, Lisa Moussa, 17.
Moussa was more fortunate. As soon as she saw the rebels, she began
running. They tried to kill her, shooting until she stumbled and fell.
The gang caught her and frogmarched her to a police station and
threatened to rape her until her father paid 6,000 Central African
francs (£7.90) for her release.
Lisa Moussa from Kaga-Bandora. Photograph: Mark Townsend
Moussa lives in the Camp Fleur district of Kaga-Bandoro, a town deep
in the jungle of the CAR, which was tipped into anarchy when the Seleka rebels overthrew
the government and seized power four months ago. The UN has declared
the entire 4.6 million population to be victims and the country among
its most dangerous destinations. Its refugee agency has called it the
"most neglected crisis in the world". Médecins Sans Frontières warns
that the country had been effectively "abandoned to its fate".
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Although
lootings and killings have been widely documented in the capital,
Bangui, reports detailing the extent of the atrocities being committed
in the country's vast hinterland remain scant, particularly in the
north, where the Seleka uprising began.
Roads are impassable due to banditry and the rainy season.
Kaga-Bandoro, 300km north of the capital, can only be reached via a mud
airstrip, landing straight into a rebel stronghold where the rule of law
has collapsed completely. Evidence of human rights abuses in the far
north are clear. Seleka rebels have repeatedly mass-raped the region's
women, say locals. Women are said to have been killed for refusing to
have sex or surrender their food. Men have been summarily executed,
tortured or have simply disappeared, witnesses say. Children have been
recruited and, according to witnesses, provide a substantial proportion
of the armed gangs. The Seleka rebels, it seems, are becoming more
numerous and more violent. In the remote north, war crimes against
civilians continue to be committed.
Events in Kaga-Bandoro were not only foretold but could have been
prevented. Yet the international community refused to heed the
escalating security warnings or answer requests for increased
humanitarian funding. Europe's arms companies, with Britain a principal
player, continued to flood the country, which has the world's
second-lowest life expectancy, with military hardware.
Philippe Benezo whose daughter lost her baby because they could not reach the hospital quickly. Photograph: Mark Townsend
Even inside Kaga-Bandoro's hospital they were not safe. The Seleka
stormed the grounds in mid-April and, according to hospital worker
Henrietta Kiringuinza, 44, began raping patients. Staff fled as the
rebels destroyed the hospital's three ambulances and looted everything,
including lamps, refrigerators, medicine – even hospital beds. Farmer
Philippe Benezon, 63, recently carried one of his six daughters, who was
heavily pregnant, 10km from the village of Botto to the hospital.
"There was no ambulance. We were bringing her by foot, but her baby died
on the way. When we got to the hospital they took the baby from her
belly."
Women appear to be the main target of the rebels. "Most of the time
women are the victims of the atrocities. They attack them, sexually
abuse them, rape them," said Thibault Ephrem, 25, who lives in
Kaga-Bandoro. He had heard that women who refused their advances had
been hacked to death with machetes. "If they want them or to get food
and the woman says no, then she can be killed."
Dusk. Most attacks occur at night with Seleka revels preying on women and girls. Photograph: Mark Townsend
The Seleka seem to attack most frequently at night, prowling the
streets of Kaga-Bandoro to abduct women and girls. "In our Abdala
neighbourhood, if you go anywhere late at night when you are on your way
back home they capture you or shoot you," said Moussa.
Kiringuinza said the rebels would melt away, only to suddenly return,
beating people randomly and shooting throughout the night so "we are
unable to sleep". Albert Vanbuel, the town's Catholic bishop, said
Kaga-Bandoro's 26,000 population were trapped in a state of terror.
Vanbuel says they have been utterly abandoned by the international
community, allowing the Seleka to commit war crimes against civilians
with impunity.
"There is nobody to help the population. There are no authorities, no militaries. When you resist, they kill you," he said.
It is impossible to verify how many people have been killed in
Kaga-Bandoro, though Vanbuel believes the figure to be between 50 and
100. Ephrem says he knows of about 100, pointing to a looted petrol
station whose owner was dragged on to the forecourt and shot. Benezon
described how men were shot in the chest at close range and tortured. He
had found bodies killed by the rebels, but how many lie undiscovered in
the jungle is unknown. Similarly, how many have disappeared, taken into
the jungle to never return, is impossible to ascertain. "We don't see
them again, they just take them," said Vanbuel, who believes 60,000 of
the region's 130,000 may now be hiding in the jungle.
Marguerite Mallot, 57, says attacks by Seleka rebels are ongoing and violent. Photograph: Mark Townsend Mark Townsend/Observer
It is also unclear how many have perished from illness, succumbing to
a diet of roots and the leaves of manioc plants. At night the tens of
thousands decamped within the jungle are impossible to locate – the CAR
is regarded as the least light-polluted country in the world,
its darkness due to its lack of development. By day, the exodus has
rendered Kaga-Bandoro strangely silent. Outlying villages lie deserted,
torched to the ground. Even the sprawling UN compound 3km from the town
has been looted, its food stores pillaged. Mother of seven Marguerite
Mallot, 57, said: "They burned my son's house that he uses for selling
some things, everything is burned."
Attacks continue. "They are still taking people's sheep, food and any
other stuff by force. If you try to say anything, they point a gun at
you," added Mallot. "They break into your house and take your stuff and
if you say anything they beat you and tie you up," said Kiringuinza.
Anyone whose task was to monitor events in the CAR knew the
atrocities were close to inevitable. The UN security council was first
briefed last December over a rebel offensive involving a coalition
called Seleka operating from the settlements north of Kaga-Bandoro.
During the next six months it would be briefed seven times over Seleka's
evolving threat. No effective action was agreed.
In the UN field office in Bangui, however, officials were becoming
acutely concerned over the effectiveness of a plan to pay off fighters
who agreed to disarm. Exactly one year – on 14 December 2011 – before
the UN security council received its initial assessment on Seleka,
officials in Bangui told the security council that a lack of funding to
complete the disarmament process could push the country "to the brink of
disaster".
On 4 April 2012, and evidently starting to panic, the UN office in
the republic hastily organised a donors' conference. According to a security council report
pledges were made by just two countries: Luxembourg offered £67,000 and
Australia £134,000, despite £14.2m being required to complete the
disarmament and reintegration process.
When questioned last week, the UN said that around 5,000 former fighters were disbanded under the programme. Yet the Observer
has learned that practically none were Seleka. The lack of money meant
that the entire north-east – where Seleka drew their fighters – was left
untouched. "The disarmament process for the north-east could not start
because no fund was available," the UN confirmed. Further pleas from the
UN office in Bangui
followed: the country was at a "critical juncture" and needed outside
help. Tensions among the thousands of fighters amassed in the north were
growing, voicing frustrations that promises made under a peace deal had
not materialised. Late last year five rebel groups elected to
amalgamate forces: Seleka was born.
A child soldier: Seleka coalition rebel stands near the presidential
palace in Bangui. Photograph: Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images SIA
KAMBOU/AFP/Getty Images
Still, the international community did nothing. Interest in the CAR
remained negligible, a malaise perhaps symbolised by the fact that the
Twitter following for the UN office in Bangui stands at 14. Britain,
along with the CAR's colonial owner France, is among those accused of
neglecting the country. A Foreign Office source said he could not recall
if a UK minister had ever visited the country. The British ambassador
is based in Cameroon, 500 miles away. In January the Africa minister,
Mark Simmonds, told parliament the UK was "active" on the ultimately
ineffectual security council discussion on the CAR. What he didn't say
was that the UK cuts its annual aid to the republic from £2.7m to £1.29m
two years ago, though an emergency £5m package is expected to be
announced by the Department for International Development this week.
Fundraising attempts have been characterised by failure. A UN request
for £129m of aid received £40m. A recent Unicef emergency appeal
outlined a need for £21m, but received under £6m.
Swimming against the tide is Kristalina Georgieva,
the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis response, who
admitted being motivated by "guilt" and a sense that the world had
turned its back on the CAR. Georgieva, who recently visited the country,
has secured an emergency £4m aid package and says a "much more forceful
contribution from the international community" is needed. "I pray that
other donors will follow suit," she added. There is a darker narrative
rarely mentioned by ministers or commissioners, however. Bangui-based
Pascal Hounier, of the European Commission's humanitarian department,
said: "Arms are flooding into the country. There were many AK47s, now
there are rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weaponry. If someone wants
to buy a weapon in CAR, it's very easy, $10 to $20." A study of the UK
arms export licences revealed that eight months ago an unknown quantity
of cryptographic equipment was sent from Britain to CAR. Earlier orders
include an official consignment of military vehicles. One UK export to
CAR for explosives and "bombing devices", used an open licence, meaning
the actual amount of hardware sent is unknown.
Bangui, capital city but in reality resembles an over-sized village.
Despite assurances that armed militia have been removed from the
streets, convoys of gangs can be seen speeding through its suburbs.
Photograph: Mark Townsend
Since 2005 the UK has been the fourth largest European exporter of arms to the CAR.
Equally alarming is the role of Britain as the key supplier of arms to
the increasingly unstable region of central Africa. Britain is Europe's
largest arms exporter to Uganda and the third largest to the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, both CAR neighbours. The Seleka rebellion has
been boosted by large numbers of foreign fighters and warlords from Chad
and Sudan. Britain is the fourth largest supplier of arms to Chad and
the second largest to Sudan, both officially classified as "countries of concern"
by the Foreign Office. Almost £670,000 of mainly tanks and vehicles
have been sent to Chad, while the UK government last year approved £7.6m
of military export licences to Sudan including weapon sight mounts. The
UK has emerged as the second largest exporter of arms to the volatile,
embryonic state of South Sudan – and its sole supplier of explosive
devices.
To the east another threat is starting to emerge. Below the canopy of
forests that smother eastern CAR, the cult-like militia of Joseph Kony
is on the move. Attempts to catch the leader of the Lord's Resistance
Army (LRA), once the focus of the world's largest manhunt, have become
clouded with doubt. Seleka have refused to cooperate, compromising the
efforts of 100 US special forces and 3,000 mainly Ugandan troops to
capture the warlord, who is accused of abducting tens of thousands of
children and hacking off civilians' limbs, lips and noses.
"The threat is moving north. For weeks we have seen an increase in
attacks. If we have a state in crisis who cannot push back the LRA, we
can expect more attacks. If CAR becomes a safe haven, then it's a real
problem for the country and the region," said Hounier.
Kony's reliance on child soldiers
has been mimicked by Seleka. Witnesses in Kaga-Bandoro describe
youngsters involved in the killings. The concern is that a state with no
functioning schools and minimal employment prospects will lead to a
generation of youngsters joining the rebels. Hounier added: "More
children are joining and it gets more difficult to get them back. There
has been a lot of recruitment." Signs indicate that the Seleka are
mushrooming into a significant force, their fighting strength of 5,000
now thought to have quadrupled.
Scores of child soldiers have been rescued and are being
rehabilitated in a centre near Bangui. Papy Kabwe of the centre
confirmed that every Seleka chief had an allocation of children that
they used in the recent killings.
In Bangui, the atmosphere remains tense. Despite assurances that
armed militia have been removed from the streets, convoys of gangs can
be seen speeding through its suburbs and are blamed for looting and
indiscriminate shootings. The country's infrastructure has been
effectively demolished. Human rights groups say the justice system has
been dismantled, the prisons destroyed. The army has been disbanded.
Just 200 policemen are left in the entire country.
But it is away from the capital where the crisis is most pronounced.
Malnutrition rates have skyrocketed and malaria cases have risen by 30%
since the Seleka assumed control. Latest assessments reveal 484,000
people at risk of food insecurity, with more than 206,000 people displaced .
Georgieva warns of a "multi-headed monster" of armed groups running
amok in a state the size of France, free to plunder as they wish.
The likes of Moussa can do little but wait for the rebels to return.
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