Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bangui (Agenzia Fides) - The situation remains tense in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, the scene of serious accidents in recent days. Local sources have sent Agenzia Fides a reconstruction of the accidents.
During the night between Friday, September 25 and Saturday 26, a young Muslim was killed in a "Christian" neighborhood in the capital. On Saturday morning, his body was taken to the Central Mosque in Bangui. The reaction was not long in coming: on Saturday morning, a group of Muslims poured into the neighborhood where the young boy was killed and began firing; a dozen people were killed and forty wounded. The population began to flee, seeking refuge in camps: about 3-4,000 people fled their homes.
In the early afternoon of Saturday, the "anti-Balaka" militias fought back, devastating the headquarters of the Muslim radio; Muslim militias responded by plundering the premises of the nearby parish of St. Michel (the pastor was at the Cathedral for a meeting) and Pastor Nicolas Guerekoyame Gbangou's house (leader of the interreligious Platform together with Archbishop, Mgr. Dieudonné Nzapalainga, and Imam Oumar Kobine Layama) who was returning from a trip abroad. The clashes continued all afternoon and caused other deaths and injured.
International forces of MINUSCA were surprised by the events, they were not able to assess the extent and did not react, limiting themselves to strengthening the protection of their facilities in the afternoon.
In the evening, hospital sources allowed to make an initial assessment: 21 dead and 110 wounded, but the Red Cross warned that the toll was set to worsen.
Opposition parties immediately joined the "anti-Balaka" to ask people to launch a civil disobedience movement, demand the departure of French forces from Central Africa, considered responsible for everything bad that happens in the Country, the reconstituting of national armed forces, the resignation of the President and his Government and the start of a new transition. To this end, they called for a vast demonstration on September 30, meanwhile, they have asked people to throw stones against all the cars on the road belonging to the UN and international NGOs, accused of enriching themselves at the back of the Country without bringing real help in resolving the crisis.
The Archbishop of Bangui, His Exc. Mgr. Dieudonné Nzapalainga, in the late morning of Sunday, 27 went to the hospitals to bring comfort to the wounded and pray with the families of the victims. Despite the barricades, he was the only person allowed to fulfill his pastoral ministry.
The Muslim community is crossed by an understandable nervousness, manifested already with some faint inkling earlier this month in the capital and with more serious incidents in the Country, especially in the center (Bambari) and the north (Kaga-Bandoro). In fact, the population census (in the elections) in Muslim areas started with delay (and among refugees has not yet begun) and many political forces do not support it, hiding behind the pretext of lack of security. In the next few days we will be told whether the Government and MINUSCA take the situation in their hands and reassure the population or if it prefers to follow those who call for the mobilization towards a dark future, fraught with further bloodshed. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 29/09/2015)
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