CAR Descends into Chaos

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (Worthy News)– Violent and unrestrained Islamist militants have caused the Central African Republic to descend into chaos, according to BarnabasAid.

CAR has been in a state of lawlessness since a coalition of Islamist rebels called Seleka took control in March; Seleka then began a campaign of terror against the country’s Christians through robbery, murder and the destruction of their churches, businesses and homes.

Although CAR President Michel Djotodia announced in September that the 25,000 members of Seleka had been dissolved, they continued to pillage and kill, e.g., Seleka militiamen attacked Christians in Bossangoa, killing at least 100 and setting homes and church buildings ablaze.

“Certainly we have seen targeting of Christians,” Michelle Kissenkoetter, International Federation for Human Rights representative to the United Nations, told Morning Star News. “We have seen selective attacks on Christians and their churches.”

Kissenkoetter said Seleka militiamen were committing atrocities with impunity because there was a total breakdown of law and order.

Chaos reigns in CAR because there is “no army, no police, no judiciary, no national security and even civil servants have fled from their posts,” she said.

The UN reports that some 400,000 of CAR’s population of five million have already fled their homes while the rest, according to one church leader, remain trapped as if inside a concentration camp.