![\"map](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/433\/2015\/01\/map-central-africa-republic.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAccording to this excellent and graphic story from Human Rights Watch<\/a>, the civil war between the Christians and Muslims in the Central African Republic is spreading \u201clike a deadly cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n The Seleka rebels who gained power in 2013 created a reign terror including \u201cburning 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The Central African Republic (the CAR) is a Christian country with a Muslim minority. In 2003, the country \u00a0democratically 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> calls, \u00a0\u201d a dangerous sectarian element. \u201d \u00a0The Nation<\/a> says that these Christian militias \u201ctargeted Muslims civilians including women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n Here is clip that Human Rights Watch <\/a>made about the fighters and embedded in their story.<\/p>\n