Red Cross: Wounded trapped in C. African Republic capital

At least 600 prisoners have escaped from the Ngaragba Central Prison in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), local security sources and eyewitnesses said Tuesday.

“We know that former dignitaries in Central African Republic want to be back in charge”, Samba-Panza told France 24 television, before leaving New York.

“They strongly condemned such violence, including all attacks against civilians, violence between communities, as well as attacks against humanitarian personnel, and recalled that those responsible should be held accountable before justice”, the statement read.

The Security Council warned in a statement that it remains prepared to blacklist individuals and entities that undermine peace and stability in the country. The U.N.-backed interim government has yet to rearm it after officers were linked to the largely Christian anti-balaka militia that conducted reprisals against Muslims after the coup.

Earlier in the day, a group of protesters had gathered in downtown Bangui in an effort to march on the presidential palace.

“I fear that if this violence is not rapidly contained, targeted attacks based on ethnicity and religion inevitably risk increasing and leading to a real civil war”, Marie-Therese Keita Bocoum told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in the Swiss city of Geneva on Wednesday.

He said things appeared to be worryingly cherish overdue 2013 and fast 2014, once thousands were actually eliminated and hundreds of thousands of others bodily vagrant by inter-communal…

The renewed violence began only three weeks before a planned general election.

Samba-Panza has blamed the latest unrest on supporters of former president Francois Bozize, who was ousted in 2013 by mainly Muslim rebels who fought under the umbrella group Seleka.

UNHCR joins the interim United Nations humanitarian coordinator, MINUSCA and others in calling on all sides for an end to the fighting and to ensure the protection of the civilian population. A Reuters journalist saw a young man’s corpse in the street on Monday. “In fact, the population is desperate and doesn’t believe in these forces anymore”, said Bangui resident Erick Wilibiro. Red Cross officials, however, said a death toll was hard to establish because they have been prevented from entering neighborhoods by protesters and armed groups.

The worst violence to hit Central African Republic’s capital in a year further deteriorated Monday as more than 500 inmates escaped from a prison and militia fighters looted the offices of global aid organizations, officials said.

A few 27,000 people have fled their homes in Bangui already, said Leo Dobbs, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency in Geneva.

Since then, the country has been gripped by violence between the Seleka fighters and Christian militias known as “antibalaka” or antimachete.