Chadian troops kill with no provocation in CAR: UN

A UN report says Chadian soldiers have opened fire on people during an unprovoked attack in the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR) last weekend.

Chadian soldiers indiscriminately fired at people fleeing the violence in a busy market in Bangui last weekend, said spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, on Friday.

“It appears that the Chadian forces’ action was totally disproportionate, as they were shooting in a crowded market full of unarmed civilians,” Colville said, adding that the injured included “children, people with disabilities, pregnant women and the elderly, as these were the people least able to run for their lives.”

The attack appeared to have ceased after Congolese peacekeepers arrived at the scene, he added.

Colville stated that the small unit of Chadian soldiers who arrived at the market in pick-up trucks on Saturday did not appear to be members of the International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) deployed to the conflict-torn country.

At least 30 people were killed and 300 others wounded including women and children during the attack, the UN official said.

The massacre marks the latest event in a string of violent incidents involving Chadian troops.

This is while Chad’s Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that it would pull out its 850 peacekeeping troops from the African Union mission in the neighboring Central African Republic.

The Chad contingent makes up about 15 percent of the 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping deployment, which is bolstered by 2,000 soldiers from France.

Figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees indicate that 637,000 people in total are now displaced inside CAR, while 82,000 mostly Muslim Central Africans have poured into neighboring countries in the past three months.