CENTRAL AFRICA

Intro: Fears are mounting that the Christian militias are engaging in ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the 7,000-strong French led international security force is in urgent need of reinforcements

Escalating violence in the Central African Republic is being overshadowed as the world’s attention is focused on events in Syria and Crimea. Central Africa might not seem a pressing priority for Western policymakers, but the conflict between Christians and Muslims in the former French colony has raised the spectre of another Rwandan-style genocide taking place on the African continent.

Many thousands have already died in bitter fighting that continues to be fuelled by long-standing tensions. In recent weeks, Muslim communities have borne the brunt of the violence, inflicted by Christian militias determined to prevent the country falling under the control of Islamist hardliners and the adoption of Sharia law.

Map of Central African Republic and neighbouring countries.

In one of the worst atrocities committed, Amnesty International documented and reported upon the massacre of a bus full of Muslims, killed by Christian rebels armed with machetes and knifes. The incident took place outside a mosque about 80 miles north of Bangui, the capital. The escalating violence has resulted in around 1.3 million people fleeing to neighbouring Chad and Cameroon – almost a quarter of the country’s entire population.

Fears are mounting that the Christian militias are engaging in ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the 7,000-strong French led international security force is in urgent need of reinforcements.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has authorised the deployment of 12,000 peacekeepers to halt the brutality, but this could take up to six months to fully enact; the many other demands being placed on the UN’s limited resources is largely attributable, but this is clearly unacceptable.

If the UN is serious in wanting to avoid another bloodbath, then donor nations must be persuaded as a matter of urgency to provide the required troops and other reinforcements. Failure to do so will only lead to the Central African Republic descending into an all-out war.