A United Nations helicopter
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three Senegalese UN peacekeeping crew members were killed and another injured in the crash of an Mi-24 helicopter in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Friday, a UN spokesman said.
They were attempting an emergency landing due to bad weather near Bouar in the west of the CAR, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The helicopter was providing air support to a security operation by the UN mission against an armed group in the Nana-Mambere prefecture, Dujarric said.
“The secretary-general, and the United Nations, extend their heartfelt condolences to the families of the fallen peacekeepers, as well as to the government and people of Senegal,” the spokesman said.
“It is with immense sorrow that I have learned of the crash of a Senegalese combat helicopter as it was landing at Bouar, leading to three deaths and one injured,” the head of the MINUSCA mission, Mankeur Ndiaye, said on Twitter.
The crash of the Russian-made helicopter was confirmed by the Senegalese army in a statement.
It was “returning from an operational mission” for MINUSCA when the accident occurred, it said.
Separately, on Thursday, MINUSCA carried out an attack on an armed group called 3R at Koui, in the northwest of the country.
The rebel group admitted that its bases had been bombarded by UN forces.
The 3R had been challenged by MINUSCA the day before to hand over those responsible for the killing of 46 civilians in the Paoua region in northern CAR in May.
Only three individuals have so far been turned over to the authorities.
One of the world’s poorest and most unstable nations, CAR has suffered several violent crises since 2003 when former president Francois Bozize seized power in a coup.
The country spiralled into bloodshed after Bozize was overthrown in 2013 by the Seleka alliance.
Since then, fighting has forced nearly a quarter of the country’s 4.5 million people to flee their homes and rival militia groups control most of the country.
In February, the government and 14 armed groups signed the eighth in a string of peace deals.
Under it, rebel chiefs were given government positions, and a confidence-building process was to begin whereby army troops and militiamen would carry out joint patrols.
But the accord has remained extremely fragile and breaches of it by the rebels occur almost daily.
The 3R was one of the signatories. Its leader, Sidiki Abass, also known as Sidi Bi Soulemane, had been appointed military advisor to the government under the pact, but stepped down on Sept 4.
The 3R – from the French words for Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation — emerged in late 2015 purportedly to defend the Muslim Fulani, or Peul, people from Christian anti-Balaka militias.
In 2016, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report that implicated the 3R in the deaths of scores of people as well as rape and wide-scale civilian displacement.
One of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping missions, MINUSCA has nearly 13 000 troops and police in the CAR in support of the elected president, Faustin-Archange Touadera. — NNN-AGENCIES
