[full]A group of soldiers in the Central African Republic lynched a man they suspected was a rebel minutes after hearing the new president’s promise to restore security at a ceremony to reinstate the divided country’s armed forces.
About 20 uniformed soldiers accused a member of the crowd of having belonged to Seleka – the mostly Muslim rebel group that seized power in a coup last March, before stabbing him repeatedly until he was dead.
A soldier stamped on the lifeless body, which was then dragged nearly naked through the streets as residents looked on and took photographs. Continue…
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[full]Ten minutes earlier the new interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza, stood just 20m away where she addressed a crowd of at least 1,000 soldiers.
The Army effectively disappeared during nine months of Seleka rule.She told the gathering at a training ground in the capital Bangui: ‘Within a month, I would like to fully secure the greater part of the country and I aim to stick to my word.’
Seleka disbanded after Samba-Panza’s inauguration last month and is deeply resented by the Christian majority after months of lootings and killings.
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[full]Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch in Bangui, tweeted that the corpse of the lynched man had been burned.
He posted a photograph showing a man holding up a severed limb next to a bonfire, as an armed French soldier gestured in the background.
Source: UK Daily Mail
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