A local employee of Médecins sans frontières (MSF) was "shot several times" on Saturday by a "member of the Central African armed forces" in the north-west of the Central African Republic, a country in the throes of a civil war, announced Tuesday May 31 the NGO to AFP. 

Mahamat Ahamat, a 46-year-old Central African "drug distributor", "was hit three times" in Moyenne-Sido, 500 km north of the capital Bangui, near the Chadian border, the NGO wrote in a statement. 

He was killed "by a member of the Central African armed forces", Romain Briey, head of the MSF Spain mission in the country, told AFP.

#Update - #RCA - An @MSF employee died on Saturday May 28 after being shot three times by an individual employed by the Central African armed forces (FACA) in the northern Ouham prefecture -west of the country.

#Thread ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/fTAW2M1Ndd

— MSF Western & Central Africa (@MSF_WestAfrica) May 31, 2022

The Central African Republic, the second least developed country in the world according to the UN, has been the scene of a civil war since 2013, very deadly in its first years but which has decreased in intensity since 2018.

Doctors Without Borders “condemns in the strongest terms” the murder and “calls on the authorities to clarify the circumstances which led to the murder of our colleague”.

Contacted by AFP, the Central African authorities did not wish to respond immediately.

"MSF is also in contact with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense and the other authorities concerned in order to better understand the circumstances which led to this unacceptable situation", continued the NGO, underlining that the "exact circumstances still need to be clarified".

Several precedents for MSF in the Central African Republic

In June 2021, a woman was killed and three people injured, including a child, in the attack by armed men on a "clearly identified" MSF convoy in the north of the Central African Republic.

In December 2020, at the time of the presidential election which saw the incumbent, Faustin Archange Touadéra, re-elected for a second term after a ballot contested by the opposition, an MSF humanitarian was killed after the attack on a public transport truck 380 km east of the capital.

At the end of 2020, the most powerful of the many armed groups which then shared two-thirds of the territory had launched an offensive on Bangui shortly before the elections and Faustin Archange Touadéra had called on Moscow to the rescue of its helpless army.

Hundreds of Russian paramilitaries - "mercenaries" from the private security company Wagner, according to the UN and Western capitals - had then joined a few hundred "advisers" already present since 2018 and made it possible, in a few months, to push back the offensive by the rebels and then to push them back from a large part of the territories and towns they controlled.

But without being able to reinstall everywhere and permanently the presence and authority of the State.

"Brutal Conflict"

The UN, the European Union and countries like France in particular, accuse Wagner's "mercenaries" of committing crimes and abuses against civilians, and the power of Faustin Archange Touadéra to let them plunder the country's resources in exchange for their military support.

On March 30, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, denounced "serious human rights violations" in the Central African Republic, including "murders and sexual violence" against civilians. , committed by rebel groups but also the armed forces of the regime and their Russian allies.

“The death of our colleague is a dramatic reminder of the reality of the brutal conflict that affects the people of the Central African Republic every day,” MSF concluded in its press release.

According to the United Nations, in 2021, out of about 5.5 million people in total, almost half of the population (47%) was in a situation of "acute food insecurity".

With AFP

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