Central African Republic: Party Leader Calls For Inquiry Into Massacre
“The images from Bria which are circulating, if they are authentic, would be intolerable," the opposition party leader said.
The President of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (MLPC), Martin Ziguele, has called for the opening of a judicial inquiry into the massacre of 70 civilians in Aigbado and Yanga villages.
On Jan. 6 and 7, Russian mercenaries supported by soldiers of the Central African Republic national army, FACA, carried out an incursion into the villages of Aigbado and Yanga, about 75 and 143 kilometres respectively from Bria on the Ndele highway.
One week after, the United Nations (UN) began an investigation into the killings, although the government of President Faustin Archange Touadera is yet to make a statement on the massacres. Russian mercenaries and FACA soldiers have also reportedly blocked access into the two villages where the killings occurred.
“The images from Bria which are circulating, if they are authentic, would be intolerable,” the opposition party leader said.
“We strongly condemn these massive and unsupportable violations of human rights, which remain unpunished, whoever their authors and accomplices may be. Our emotional thoughts are with the victims and their families. We demand for the opening of an inquiry, after which, sanctions.”
Ziguele, president of the MPLC party supported President Touadera during the 2015 presidential elections but later joined the democratic opposition after his contested victory in the 2020 elections.
Some of the persons wounded during the massacre and who have returned to Bria spoke of genocide.
According to them, there are still several yet to be identified corpses in the bushes.
“Even in the River Kotto, fishermen have since fished out fourteen corpses from the river, including the corpses of women and children brought down from River Boungou, a confluent to River Kotto,” one of them revealed.
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