The UN detains a senior rebel official accused of human rights violations in the Central African Republic

March 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has announced the arrest of a senior official from the rebel Patriots for Change Coalition (CPC) accused of Human Rights violations in the context of the conflict in the country African.

The mission has detailed in a statement that the suspect, identified as “general” Hussein Damboucha, commander of the Popular Front for the Renaissance of Central Africa (FPRC) –integrated into the CPC–, was arrested on Saturday in the town of Sam Ouandja , in the Hautte-Kotto prefecture, in a joint operation with the Central African security forces.

“MINUSCA recalls that the name of ‘general’ Hussein Damboucha appears in the reports of the Group of Experts on CAR as the author of violations and attacks against Human Rights and Humanitarian Law,” it said, before noting that at this time He is in the custody of the Central African authorities in the country’s capital, Bangui.

Likewise, he stressed that the resolution approved by the UN Security Council to extend its mandate until November 15, 2023 calls on the mission to “strengthen the independence of justice and the capacities and effectiveness of the judicial apparatus, as well as the efficiency and responsibility of the prison system, mainly by providing technical assistance to the Central African authorities to identify those responsible for crimes that involve violations of Humanitarian Law”.

“MINUSCA will continue to give its support to the Central African judicial institutions in the fight against impunity, an essential condition for the consolidation of peace and national reconciliation,” it concluded in its statement published on its website.

The FPRC was part of the Séléka armed coalition, made up mostly of Muslims, which in 2013 led an uprising against the then president, François Bozizé. Although Séléka dissolved in 2014, some factions are active and the FPRC opted in 2021 to join the CPC, currently led by Bozizé himself.

Tensions erupted after the elimination of the candidacy of Bozizé, who returned to the country at the end of 2019 to once again be a candidate for the Presidency, after which several armed groups, including some members of the 2015 peace agreement, formed the CPC to launch an offensive against the capital to try to remove the current president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, from power.