Sunday, around 5 am (local time), an attack took place on a mining site in the Bambari region in the Central African Republic. During this assault, nine Chinese were killed. As the mayor of Bambari, Abel Matchipata, told AFP, the victims are Chinese nationals working on a mining site of the “Gold Coast Group company”, located 25 km from the locality and which was attacked. by “armed men”.
China confirmed the toll on Monday, citing “two seriously injured”, but without giving further details on the circumstances of this attack, which has not been the subject of any claim so far. Xi Jinping “called for making every effort to treat the injured” as well as “severely punishing the murderers in accordance with law,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“With the exception of the capital Bangui, the level of security risk in the other regions of the Central African Republic is red, that is to say extremely high”, underlined the ministry, calling on Chinese citizens “to evacuate as soon as possible. quickly” dangerous areas in this country plagued by civil war.
The suspected Russian Wagner group
The Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), an alliance of rebel groups created in December 2020 to overthrow President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, denied any involvement in the attack on Sunday. She denounced an “ignoble and barbaric” act, accused the “Russian mercenaries (of the paramilitary organization) Wagner” of being behind it.
The Central African Republic, the second least developed country in the world according to the UN, has been the scene of a civil war since 2013, very deadly in its first years but which has decreased in intensity since 2018. At the end of 2020, the most powerful of the many groups which then shared two-thirds of the territory had launched an offensive on Bangui shortly before the elections and Faustin-Archange Touadéra had called on Moscow to the rescue of its destitute army.
Hundreds of Russian paramilitaries had then joined those already present since 2018. It had made it possible, in a few months, to repel the rebels’ offensive, then to drive them back from a large part of the territories and cities they controlled, but without to be able to reinstall everywhere and permanently the presence and authority of the Central African State.