UNITED NATIONS: Russian instructors sent to the Central African Republic have carried out “indiscriminate killings,” lootings, and occupied schools, according to an annual UN report, though Moscow says they are unarmed and not involved in fighting.
The testimonies detail excessive force which amounts to violations of international humanitarian law, the report by UN experts submitted to the Security Council recently and seen by AFP on Monday said.
Such violations “by FACA soldiers and Russian instructors included cases of excessive use of force, indiscriminate killings, the occupation of schools and looting on a large scale, including of humanitarian organizations,” it says. “FACA” refers to the Central African armed forces.
The experts received “numerous reports of cases of indiscriminate killings against unarmed civilians by Russian instructors,” the report said.
One of the world’s poorest countries, the CAR has been chronically unstable since it gained independence from France in 1960.
Since December, the army, backed by the 12,000-strong UN MINUSCA peacekeepers, Rwandan special forces and Russian paramilitaries, has wrested much of the territory from rebel control.
But the conflict displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the first months of the year, while around half the population is facing “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to the UN.
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