UN report: militia linked to CAR govt is behind possible war crimes

Government forces in the Central African Republic (CAR) are training militias and working with private military companies behind possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a fresh UN report.
The paper published by the United Nations Human Rights Office and its Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR (MINUSCA) detailed a massacre that took place in Boyo village in the south of the landlocked country in late 2021. Former members of the militia known as Anti-Balaka wielding machetes, it claims, killed at least 20 civilians in the week-long attack, while five women and girls were raped and 547 houses were burned and looted. More than 1,000 villagers were forced to flee, while hundreds of others were held for days in the village mosque as the militia members threatened to kill them, the report said.
The attack appeared to have been aimed at punishing the Muslim community in the village, which was perceived as supportive of an armed group engaged in fighting the government, it said. The attack was one of the first instances when the government with private military companies “reportedly trained and armed locally recruited youth and created militias to enter villages under the control of armed groups”, the UN rights office said in a statement. In a separate report, the UN rights office and MINUSCA also detailed systematic and widespread sexual violence by several armed groups affiliated with the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), which has been seeking to overturn the government by force.