The Central African Republic has been torn apart by bloody sectarian clashes since Muslim rebels ousted president Francois Bozize in March 2013 and replaced him with their leader Michel Djotodia, who was himself forced out last month (Photo Credit: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images).
By Natalia Taylor Bowdoin, Central African Republic Country Specialist
Last week, Amnesty met with the President of the Central African Republic – a country where clashes between the Christian majority and Muslim minority have resulted in war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Christian militias are carrying out violent attacks in an effort to drive Muslims from the country. In response, Amnesty is demanding that international peacekeeping forces stop the violence and station troops in towns where Muslims are threatened.
We saw bodies littering the streets. Several of them had been partially burned and others had been partly eaten by dogs and other animals. One was the body of a baby who could not have been more than seven or eight months old.
They have taken over 100 first-hand testimonies of large-scale attacks on Muslim civilians in towns where only a scattering of international troops have failed to protect communities.
Senior crisis response advisor Donatella Rovera said: “We saw bodies littering the streets. Several of them had been partially burned and others had been partly eaten by dogs and other animals. One was the body of a baby who could not have been more than seven or eight months old. In one of the houses, I found an 11-year-old girl – the only Muslim survivor of the village. She was terrified. There had not been any peacekeepers there.”
This violence is unconscionable. Please take action and tell international international peacekeeping troops they need to step up their operations to effectively protect civilians, in particular the country’s remaining Muslim communities.
What kind of bs is this? Where have you gotten this information? It's the muslims killing Christians, not the other way around. If it were true, it would be terrible. As it is, countless numbers of Christians get killed and tortured daily in multiple countries, and mostly by muslims. I really don't understand where you all got this story from. Probably the muslims.
Ah, I see. Christians for years have been killed, tortured, and driven out of their homes by muslims, they now decide to fight back, which is reasonable, and you want to speak up for the muslims?
Holy shit, these are not true Christians. They are a group claiming to be Christian they are using Christs name for there own gain. Christ would have never done something like this.
It is wrong, but it started because of similar treatment from a previous Muslim leader towards Christians. At any rate, these things should never start because stopping them is so difficult, but it has to stop somewhere and as soon as possible is good.
This is horrible.
Have you noticed that the Christian vigilante groups are called anti-balaka — i.e., anti-machete? They had finally had enough of being persecuted, raped and killed by the Muslims (the Muslims who had violently overthrown their government), and they stood up to take their country back. It isn't "clashes between the Christian majority" etc. that have led to the violence — it was the violent overthrow of the government, by Muslims, followed by violent persecution of Christians, by Muslims, that led to the violence.
It's quite striking that this blog post doesn't even *pretend* to be about protecting both sides, ensuring that the government is stable and that the Muslims who carried out the coup don't try again, etc. More than once, it blatantly says that the goal is to protect the Muslims. Period. Meanwhile, I suppose, the ethnic cleansing of Christians is supposed to be allowed to go on without comment, just as it was before the anti-balaka groups formed. This is shameful. I used to be a proud member of Amnesty International, but now that it's primarily about defending Muslims who violently overthrow governments and persecute Christians, I'm over it.