A new armed group created to defend a beleaguered ethnic minority in Central African Republic has killed at least 50 people since late 2015, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The group, which calls itself Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation or 3R, "has killed civilians, raped, and caused large-scale displacement over the past year," the US-based rights watchdog said in a report.
HRW said the 12,500-strong UN peacekeeping force, MINUSCA, was "unable to fully protect civilians" in the north-west Ouham Pende province where the 3R has carried out its attacks. The 3R emerged in late 2015 purportedly to defend the Muslim Peul people from Christian anti-Balaka militias, adding to a roster of armed sectarian, ethnic groups responsible for bloodletting across the troubled nation.
CAR is struggling to emerge from a civil war that erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition. The coup led to the formation of "anti-Balaka" vigilante units, drawn from the Christian majority, which began to target Muslims. Both sides committed widespread atrocities. Militias are still flourishing given the weakness of the state, and their clashes and attacks on civilians have displaced more than a quarter of the population of CAR's 4.8 million people.