OVER 80 NIGERIANS KILLED IN BANGUI

11 December 2013

[img]http://dailytrust.info/images/stories/associations/CAR.jpg[/img]
. FG says unaware, as others evacuate nationals

At least 83 Nigerians have been killed in the Central African Republic capital Bangui in the latest wave of sectarian violence following months of political crisis, a community leader told Daily Trust yesterday.

The CAR has been in chaos since rebel leader Michel Djotodia ousted President Francois Bozize in March.

Fuelled by ethnic rivalries, the conflict has also now become sectarian in nature as Djotodia installed himself as the first Muslim leader in the Christian-majority country, sparking months of bloody clashes between rival fighters.

A Nigerian community leader resident in Bangui, Muhammad Kalanbai, who spoke to Daily Trust by telephone yesterday,said most of the Nigerians killed in the latest violence were Muslims from the North.

“As I am speaking to you now, there are 16 bodies of Nigerian Muslims at the Ali Baglo mosque in Bangui, who were not buried because of the violence,” said Kalanbai, who is the leader of northern Nigerians living in that country.

“Just last week over 67 Nigerian Muslims were killed by the supporters of Bozize. We are under serious attack.

“As I am talking to you now, you can even hear gunshots. I narrowly escaped being killed yesterday,” he added.

Reuters news agency reported that much of the wide-scale violence that has killed hundreds in the last week has eased but reporters in Bangui saw a mosque set on fire, houses looted and cars torched yesterday.

Residents reported several lynchings overnight too.

Kalanbai told Daily Trust yesterday that supporters of Bozize were being given protection by the French forces, instead of restraining them.

“The French forces, instead of protecting civilians, ended up only backing the rebels who are busy killing Muslims with machetes, daggers and other weapons,” he said.

He said that the Nigerian Muslims living in the country were “now rushing to the Nigerian embassy in Bangui for protection.”

He urged the Federal Government to evacuate them back to Nigeria.

“We are calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to come to our rescue by sending aircraft to bring us back to Nigeria. Our lives are in serious danger,” Kalanbai said.

He said other African countries, including Cameroon, Chad and Mali, had already sent planes to evacuate their nationals.

Thousands of Nigerians live in CAR, mainly in the capital Bangui. They are mostly from northern Nigeria, and are involved in diamond mining and trading activities.

A significant colony of Nigerian expatriates has sprung up in a Bangui neighborhood known as New Ikoyi, apparently named after the highbrow Lagos suburb, according to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

FG not aware
The Federal Government yesterday said it was unaware of the killing of Nigerians in CAR. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, Mr Ode Ogbole, when contacted, said he was hearing about the incident from our reporter.

“I am hearing this from you but I will contact our Central African Republic mission to find out about the report,” he said.

Daily Trust could not reach the Nigerian embassy in Bangui by telephone last night.

In his reaction, a former Nigeria diplomat, Ambassador Sulaiman Dahiru, said the situation required urgent evacuation of Nigerian nationals.

He told Daily Trust by telephone that the Nigerian embassy in Bangui should immediately begin efforts to ensure the safety of Nigerians. Dahiru said the African Union (AU) has not been proactive in the CAR crisis, and urged the organisation to do more to contain the situation.

Meanwhile, French authorities yesterday said two of its troops were killed in combat overnight in Bangui.

Reuters news agency reported that the two soldiers, who were among the 1,600 France deployed to its former colony, died after coming under attack at close range during an overnight patrol.

According to Celestin Christ Leon, a spokesman for the African peacekeeping force in Bangui, a rebel commander was harassing people, who called the French to come and help them.

“They came and tried to disarm the Seleka but gunfire erupted,” he said.

In the Fouh neighbourhood, civilians armed with wooden clubs and machetes attacked a mosque and nearby houses.

“We found arms in their mosque. We don’t want to see Djotodia and his Muslims here anymore,” said one man at the scene, who wielded a large knife and refused to give his name.

Reuters reported that at least six people were lynched overnight, mainly during violence targeting Muslims, according to residents in Benz-vi and Miskine, Bangui neighbourhoods.

The Central African Republic is rich in diamonds, gold and uranium but despite such resources, most people remain poor. The country has seen little stability in five decades and France has intervened more times since independence in 1960 than in any of its former colonies.

It also lies at a crossroads of conflict in the heart of Africa, with Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia to the east, the Islamist threat in the Sahel region to the north and the revolts of the Great Lakes to the southeast.

He said other African countries, including Cameroon, Chad and Mali, had already sent planes to evacuate their nationals.

“We are calling on
President Goodluck
Jonathan to come to our
rescue by sending aircraft
to bring us back to Nigeria.
Our lives are in serious
danger,” Kalanbai said.
He said other African
countries, including
Cameroon, Chad and Mali,
had already sent planes to
evacuate their nationals.

Tolexander: i will advise my bros to just struggle to find a way to sneak out of the country to escape.

They aren't Asari Dokubo that can be guaranteed presidential intervention outside nigeria.

donphilopus:

Nigeria should also try and do the needful, before they perish there!

Besides, do we not have ambassador representing us there?? Why would they say they are not aware?? They should better try and do something now, before it's too late.

Bigcake: No single plane shld be sent to those ediots,they wanted to fight let dem fight, they thought dis is Nigeria whr they kill and go scotfree. I wish i was there to join hands and kill all those rat looking musllems

donphilopus:

Nigeria should also try and do the needful, before they perish there!

Besides, do we not have ambassador representing us there?? Why would they say they are not aware?? They should better try and do something now, before it's too late.

IGBO-SON:


^^^Could be the Ambassador didn't reckon on having these kind of 'issues' to contend with. He must have thought being an Ambassador was just to flex and jolificate 24/7......the scales should have fallen from his eyes by now!

IGBO-SON:


^^^Could be the Ambassador didn't reckon on having these kind of 'issues' to contend with. He must have thought being an Ambassador was just to flex and jolificate 24/7......the scales should have fallen from his eyes by now!

donphilopus: Most of them do not know their work as ambassadors!

The number of people who have fled from the Central Africa Republic has risen to 37,000 since the start of a rebellion in December last year according to the United Nations (UN) figures. Over the last four months, another 173,000 people have become internally displaced owing to the unrest. And there are genuine fears that the situation could get out of hands if democratic order is not quickly restored.

As the Michael Djotodia- led junta tries to stabilise, the Nigerian ambassador to CAR, Prince Roland Ola Omowa, has urged about 3,000 Nigerians living in that country to remain calm as the Federal Government has and will “continue to do” everything to secure their lives and property.

When the rebels ousted former President Francois Bozize himself (Who then fled to Cameroon) last month, about 180 people including the country’s head of Parliament and two army Generals sought refuge in the Nigerian embassy in the country’s capital-Bangui.

Speaking with The Guardian at the weekend, Ambassador Omowa who was in Nigeria to deliver a special message from the ousted Bozize to President Goodluck Jonathan when the rebels struck, said Africans must find solutions to African problems.

iterator25: Nigerians are in CAR ***Dies**

Lawless CAR Attracting Terrorists’ Attention

November 22, 2013


Seleka rebels, seen here July 15, 2013, in the town of Bria, Central African Republic. overthrew the previous president in March, and are accused of continuing to carry out atrocities in some of the most isolated corners of the country.


BANGUI — A power vacuum and the total absence of law and order in the vast, sparsely populated Central African Republic could be luring terror groups from across Africa. A senior United Nations official says there are indications that Nigeria’s Boko Haram is on the ground.

Carved out by colonialism and marred by coups since independence in 1960, the broken heart of Africa has received little attention from the outside except from former ruler France, diamond dealers, big game hunters and cross-border rebel groups.

Experts say all the elements exist to attract militants who are looking to set up shop, hide, or hijack the country's increasingly sectarian conflict that has seen Muslims and Christians turn against one another for the first time.


Michel Djotodia, the rebel leader who declared himself president over the weekend after his soldiers seized the capital, meets with members of the government armed forces, in Bangui, Central African Republic, March 28, 2013.

CAR's de facto President Michel Djotodia enlisted bands of Muslim rebels -- including mercenaries from Chad and Sudan and bandits calling themselves “Seleka”, or alliance -- to help him seize power eight months ago.

According to CAR Justice Minister Arcene Sende, they were joined by 1,500 prisoners, a third of whom were convicted of murder.


Analysts say the initial “Seleka” forces of a few thousand -- who took power in March -- have multiplied in the wake of mass impunity for looting, rape and killing. Analysts suggest the number could now be as large as 25,000. The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that 3,500 children have been co-opted into the ranks.

CAR’s home-grown terror combined with its diamond, gold and ivory riches are a draw for armed groups chased from elsewhere in Africa by regional and international forces.

Edmond Mulet, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations in New York, said the complete absence of a working government in CAR is similar to northern Mali in 2012 -- where Islamist groups affiliated with al-Qaida stepped into the political vacuum and took over.

Mulet told VOA he thinks the first ones to arrive in the CAR in may be the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram - who are already present in neighboring northern Cameroon.

“I don't think about al-Shabab, but certainly Boko Haram we have some indications that there is some kind of a presence here," said Mulet. "In different places, different elements are really already trying to get hold of some presence in the country.”

CAR Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye did not want to talk to VOA directly on the issue of Boko Haram - but said concern would not be unfounded.

“I can't talk to you about it. It's just because you brought it up … but it's not enough to confirm it yet," said Tiangaye. "In any case, for the jihadists yes, we have some elements, we have some elements. For now, we don't have all the elements to confirm their effective presence.”

This month the United States officially designated Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. The group seeks to impose strict Islamic law across Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north and has killed thousands in attacks going back to 2009.

The Nigerian government has the northeast under a state of emergency and the military is waging an intense offensive - which may be forcing militants to consider new bases outside its borders.


Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army during a meeting with a delegation of 160 officials and lawmakers from northern Uganda and representatives of non-governmental organizations, July 31, 2006, Congo near the Sudan border.

CAR has long been a favorite hideout of brutal warlord Joseph Kony, whose Lord's Resistance Army has terrorized communities in nearby Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.

U.S. special forces have been assisting thousands of African soldiers in hunting for Kony - who has a $5 million bounty on his head.

With the growing international involvement against terrorism in Africa, the question arises whether alluding to Boko Haram’s presence in the CAR isn’t a tactic to elicit more foreign funds and soldiers on the ground.

General Babacar Gaye, who heads the U.N. peacekeeping mission in CAR, said fears over global terror groups is secondary to the massive humanitarian, security and human rights problems that has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes and left a third of the population in need.

“For the time being, we don't need to have the presence of any terrorists groups to be mobilized and concerned by the situation," said Gaye. "I can assure you that the people of the ground, their suffering is worth mobilizing the international community to stabilize this country and alleviate the suffering. We don't need to have Boko Haram to mobilize people.”

The U.N. has warned that “the seeds of genocide” are being sown in CAR. But with so few watching the forest-covered country, it will be hard to know when, or if, terror groups take root, or mass violence begins.

Theben: ^
They should stay there to finish what they all started.

Bigcake: No single plane shld be sent to those ediots,they wanted to fight let dem fight, they thought dis is Nigeria whr they kill and go scotfree. I wish i was there to join hands and kill all those rat looking musllems