Two more UN peacekeepers killed in C. Africa

  19 January 2021    Read: 409
Two more UN peacekeepers killed in C. Africa

Rebels killed two peacekeepers in the Central African Republic on Monday, the UN mission MINUSCA said, hours after the top court confirmed President Faustin Archange Touadera's re-election in a December vote marred by low turnout, AzVision.az reports citing AFP.

The peacekeepers -- a Gabonese and a Moroccan -- were killed in an ambush on their convoy near the southern city of Bangassou, a city that the UN said at the weekend had been retaken from armed groups who had seized it two weeks earlier.

The attack, the latest in a series blamed on a coalition of armed groups that mounted a failed coup ahead of the December 27 vote, brought the number of MINUSCA troops killed since then to seven.

UN special envoy to CAR Mankeur Ndiaye said MINUSCA had paid a "heavy price" but remained committed to "pursuing its mandate to protect civilians and secure elections".

The coalition had tried to advance on the capital Bangui on December 19 in an operation that Touadera said was fomented by his predecessor, Francois Bozize.

Last Wednesday, the rebels mounted their closest attack yet to Bangui, striking near the city's outskirts before being pushed back with the loss of a peacekeeper.

They were thwarted by government and UN forces, as well as Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops under bilateral security pacts.

Earlier on Monday, the Constitutional Court's chief judge, Daniele Darlan, said Touadera clinched victory in the first round of the December election with 53.16 percent of the vote, trailed by former prime minister Anicet Georges Dologuele with 21.69 percent.


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