AFRICA/CENTRAL AFRICAN REP. - An atypical form of "genocide" is scourging the country

Monday, 4 June 2018 genocide   violence   mass media   justice  

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Bangui (Agenzia Fides) - "When a Central African returns home after spending a few years abroad, he realizes the abnormal and precarious situation that the Country is going through. Since 2013, so many resolutions have followed in relation to the Central African crisis and yet reality does not change": says to Agenzia Fides Fr. Francis Davy Barka-Nado, Superior of the District of the Society of African Missions of the CAR since 2017.
"The news on incidents and massacres committed by rebel groups against the civilian population do not reflect reality on the ground. What is said, transmitted and disseminated by international means, is bias and exploited.
When there is a tragedy in a city or village, the survivors know who did what and know the number of victims. But they are also victims and do not have access to international media to express themselves. Often the perpetrators are presented as victims", explained Father Francis.
"The suffering of the Central African population - he notes - far exceeds what is reported outside the Country or what is seen on television in the West. Death has become an everyday friend. The morgues of the Bangui General Hospital and the community hospital are no longer sufficient to receive corpses. The coffin business, which culturally represents a taboo, is becoming very profitable right now".
"Our people do not understand why the international media are doing everything to keep the idea that what is happening in the CAR is a religious war between Muslims and Christians," explains the priest. "After the last events, which cost the lives of many faithful during a religious celebration, the leaders
of the religious platform of Central Africa invited the people to a demonstration at the Bangui sports stadium on Friday 25 May (see Fides 28/5/2018). On that day - adds Father Francis - strangely, nothing can be found regarding the statement of the spiritual fathers of the Platform on international media".
The religious observes: "The statement of the leaders of the platform of religious confessions of the CAR expresses the great unjustified suffering imposed on the entire nation, held hostage by rebels, foreign mercenaries with the complicity of some neighboring countries that crave and illegally exploit the riches of the subsoil with the legitimacy of some western countries that supply arms to looters. The arrival of the Russian army in the country was greeted by the population as a relief against the atrocities, despite the presence of United Nations forces, even if there is renewed violence and threats in different cities across the country. The triumphal entry of rebel groups in the city of Bambari during the month of May 2018 is just one example. Anxiety due to uncertainty, war psychoses and planned attacks on the peaceful population are sources of great concern. Schools and the administration are experiencing a state of general uncertainty. War weapons still enter the country. We are here, surrounded by chaos. There is no religious war. There is rather an exploitation of the religions of Central Africa. It seems as if there was a planned depopulation project in some parts of the country. Villages, infrastructures, human lives are destroyed; entire families eradicated due to ethnicity, race and religion. It can be said that at present there is an atypical form of genocide in the CAR, he concludes. (AP/FBN) (Agenzia Fides, 4/6/2018)


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