Russian instructors sent to the Central African Republic carried out “indiscriminate killings”, looting and occupied schools, according to an annual UN report, although Moscow claims they are unarmed and not involved in the fighting.
The testimonies describe excessive force that corresponds to violations of international humanitarian law, said the report of UN experts recently submitted to the Security Council and seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday.
Such violations “by FACA soldiers and Russian instructors included cases of excessive violence, indiscriminate murder, occupation of schools and large-scale looting, including humanitarian organizations,” it said.
“FACA” refers to the Central African Armed Forces. The experts received “several reports of cases of undoubted murders of unarmed civilians by Russian instructors,” the report said.
One of the world’s poorest countries, the Central African Republic, has been chronically unstable since gaining independence from France in 1960.
Since December, the army, with the support of the 12,000-strong UN MINUSCA peacekeepers, Rwanda’s special forces and Russian paramilitary forces, has abolished much of the territory from rebel control. But the conflict displaced hundreds of thousands of people during the first months of the year, while about half of the population faces “high levels of acute food insecurity”, according to the UN.
The Russians are especially credited for strengthening the otherwise poorly equipped national army dating back to 2018, when Moscow first sent “instructors” to train its besieged armed forces and delivered small arms and was relieved of the UN arms embargo. In April, Moscow acknowledged the deployment of 532 instructors to the Central African Republic and claimed that this number had never exceeded 550.
But UN experts “noted that several sources estimated that the figure was significantly higher, from 800 to 2100.” That estimate does not include another 600 Russian instructors whose deployment was announced to the UN in May by the Central African Republic.
The experts quoted “several testimonies from both local and FACA sources that instructors deployed including individuals who identified themselves as nationals of Libya, Syria and other countries,” the report said.
Many testimonies from several places “also noted the active participation of Russian instructors in combat operations on the ground, many have observed that they often led rather than followed the FACA”, the report states.
The document also describes the atrocities committed against civilians by the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), which was created in late 2020 and brings together several armed groups that control large parts of the country and are determined to overthrow the Central African government.
“Widespread international humanitarian law violations committed by CPC-affiliated groups included forced recruitment of children, attacks on peacekeepers, cases of sexual violence and looting of humanitarian organizations,” the experts said.
In its recommendations, the UN Panel called on the Security Council to extend the sanctions and the arms embargo, which expires on 31 July and which the Central African Republic, Russia, China and several African countries are calling for to be lifted.
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