A Burundian soldier in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) was killed late Sunday in a clash in the centre of the country, UN sources said. The fighting occurred in the town of Bambari, according to UN sources there and in the capital Bangui. A CAR soldier was also injured. The death came a week after a Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed and seven others were wounded when their patrol was ambushed in the village of Dilapoko in the southwest Mambere-Kadei prefecture.
The UN force, known by its French acronym of MINUSCA, has been in CAR since April 2014, tasked with assisting to stabilise the country after a brutal sectarian-tinged civil conflict that France helped to dampen. It is one of the UN's biggest peacekeeping operations and currently has 11,000 troops and 2,000 police in a complement of nearly 13,500 people.
However, the mission is struggling to contain militias who control most of the country's territory and often violently fight each other.