(AGN) – Endangered citizens of the Central African Republic are fleeing the country in the hundreds of thousands as rebel fighters seek to overturn the recent re-election of President Faustin Archange Touadera with familiar cries of fraud and demands for his ouster.
Touadera was re-elected after a vote on Dec. 27, defeating 16 other candidates. The country’s electoral college said he captured 54 percent of the vote – enough to make a runoff unnecessary.
The mineral-rich nation has vast stockpiles of gold, diamonds, uranium and oil. It has been plagued by competing power-seeking forces since 2013 when a rebellion ousted former president Francois Bozize.
Bozize threw his hat into the ring in 2019 but was barred from running. In a scenario like that foreseen for the U.S., a Constitutional Court ruled that he did not satisfy the “good morality” requirement, over official allegations of torture and assassinations.
Militia leaders have also been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Fighters targeted civilians, used rape as a weapon of war, forced children into their ranks, and deliberately targeted homes and properties of Muslims, the courts have charged.
UN peacekeepers and local and Rwandan soldiers have been patrolling the streets throughout the capital, according to reporters of the Agence France Press (AFP) and a peacekeeping force, whose mandate the U.N. Security Council renewed on Nov. 14, 2019, should strengthen civilian protection and maximize its role in securing justice.
Experts and opposition figures are asking what legitimacy the re-elected president and 140 MPs will have, given the obstacles to voting freely by a large proportion of people in internal exile.
“Everyone is fleeing at the moment. I’m holed up at home,” Robert, from Boali, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Bangui told the French-language AFP by phone, over explosions audible in the background.
“How do we vote when we don’t even have our voter cards?” he asked.
“Refugee arrivals into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have reached 92,000 according to local authorities and some 13,240 people have crossed into Cameroon, Chad, and the Republic of Congo, since violence erupted in December 2020 ahead of CAR’s general elections,” the statement said. w/pix of cell at Bozize villa where prisoners were forced to stand
By Lisa Vives
