BANGUI, Dec 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The head of the Russian cultural centre in the Central African Republic was badly wounded Friday after opening a parcel bomb, Moscow’s embassy said, amid accusations France was behind the blast.
France denied the claim by the boss of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that Paris was involved and should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
Central Africa has been battling civil war since 2013 and is at the heart of Russia’s bid for strategic influence in Africa.
The last French troops deployed in CAR left on Thursday following a chill in relations caused by closer ties between Bangui and Moscow and the deployment of Russian forces, which some countries say includes Wagner mercenaries.
“The head of the Russia House (cultural centre) received an anonymous parcel on Friday, opened it and an explosion happened,” the embassy said, quoted by the official TASS news agency.
The centre’s head Dmitry Sytyi was hospitalised with “serious injuries,” it added.
“I have already requested the Russian foreign ministry to initiate the procedure to declare France a state sponsor of terrorism,” Prigozhin was quoted as saying in a statement released by his company, Concord.
He called for a “thorough investigation” into “the terrorist methods of France and its Western allies — the United States and others.”
France’s top diplomat on Friday denied Prigozhin’s claims.
“This information is false and is a good example of Russian propaganda and the fanciful imagination that sometimes characterises it,” Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said during a visit to Morocco.
Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said it was unclear if Sytyi would make it.
“Russian doctors are doing everything they can in the Bangui hospital to save him,” Prigozhin said.
France, the former colonial power, dispatched up to 1,600 troops to help stabilise CAR after a coup in 2013 unleashed a civil war along sectarian lines.
In 2018, Moscow sent instructors to the country, and in 2020 followed this with hundreds of paramilitaries to help President Faustin Archange Touadera defeat rebels advancing on the capital. — NNN-AGENCIES
