Human Rights Crisis in CAR: Resources

According to this excellent and graphic story from Human Rights Watch, the civil war between the Christians and Muslims in the Central African Republic is spreading “like a deadly cancer.”

The Seleka rebels who gained power in 2013 created a reign terror including “burning down village after village, firing randomly at civilians from their pick-up trucks, executing farmers in their fields, torturing anyone suspected of plotting against them, and murdering women and children.”

The Central African Republic (the CAR) is a Christian country with a Muslim minority. In 2003, the country  democratically elected a new president. But he had so many problems with civil strife and foreign intervention that a civil war broke out in 2013 when different groups tried to overthrow him. Muslim rebels won and installed a Muslim leader.

The Muslims, called Seleekas, burned villages, killed civilians, and destroyed over 1000 homes. Christians began to fight back. Their militias, called anti-balaka or anti machete, began a ruthless campaign of reprisals, introducing what the Nation calls,  ” a dangerous sectarian element. ”  The Nation says that these Christian militias “targeted Muslims civilians including women and children.”

Here is clip that Human Rights Watch made about the fighters and embedded in their story.