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Bangui — At least 13 people were burned alive in the Central African Republic at the weekend when they were rounded up by armed men and barricaded inside a home that was set alight, a police source said yesterday. The attack was carried out by men believed linked to former rebels of the mainly Muslim Seleka group and the Peuls ethnic group in the region of Kaga Bandoro in the country’s centre, a source with the local police force said.
International Criminal Court investigators arrived in Bangui on Thursday to begin probing the relentless violence that has plagued the Central African Republic for 18 months.
Meanwhile, the ICC’s first fact-finding mission since a preliminary probe was launched earlier this year comes amid unabated ethnic and religious violence that has prompted warnings that a possible genocide is imminent.
“Serious crimes have been committed since 2012 in Central Africa,” ICC head of international cooperation Amadi Bah said at a news conference in the capital.
A coalition of mainly Muslim rebels launched an offensive in late 2012, eventually seizing power from president Francois Bozize in March last year.
Some of the fighters went rogue and the abuses they committed spurred majority Christians into creating vigilante groups, which have in turn carried out atrocities. — AP
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