Free Republic

Alindao, Central African Republic, Nov 16, 2018 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At least 42 people have died in an attack Thursday on the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Alindao, in the Central African Republic, according to local reports. At least one priest was among those killed in the Nov. 15 attack. Some unofficial estimates have said the death toll could reach as high as 100. Many of the people killed were refugees sheltering at the Church. The CAR has suffered violence since December 2012, when several bands of mainly Muslim rebel groups formed an alliance, taking the name...

Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - The Central African Republic named its first Muslim prime minister on Sunday as part of an effort to create a more inclusive government and end more than a year of sectarian violence. Together with Samba-Panza, a Christian, Kamoun faces the difficult task of revitalising a delicate political transition aimed at ending deadly sectarian violence and disarming militias in one of Africa's poorest countries. The latest unrest in the CAR began in March 2013 when the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition toppled the ruling regime and put Michel Djotodia -- the country's first Muslim president...

Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - Peacekeepers in the Central African Republic declared war on the majority-Christian vigilante known as "anti-balaka" on Wednesday as the UN warned the militia had crossed a red line by attacking international troops. The head of the MISCA African force blamed the groups for a series of attacks on peacekeepers in the former French colony, and said they would be treated as "enemies". "From now on, we consider the anti-balaka as enemies of MISCA," Congolese General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko said in remarks carried by a private radio station. "And we will treat them as such."...

(Reuters) - Gunfire rang out, mosques were attacked and Muslim-owned shops and houses were looted overnight in Central African Republic's capital, and the former president left for exile in Benin after stepping down as part of a drive to restore order. There were hopes that the change of leadership might provide a fresh start to peace efforts, and violence had eased by daybreak on Saturday. But the United Nations stepped up flights out for foreigners. Governments of other African countries have evacuated nearly 30,000 of their citizens caught up in the violence. President Michel Djotodia and Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye...

When rebel forces, led by Arab-speaking Muslims, seized control of the Central African Republic this March, it deepened fears that a co-ordinated Islamist insurgency could now be spreading through swathes of the continent. Four months on, the landlocked country is living through a reign of terror, largely directed against its Christian minority.“Churches have been routinely robbed and pillaged here, while Muslim mosques have been left untouched,” Mgr Cyriaque Gbate Doumalo, secretary-general of the Central African Republic’s Catholic bishops’ conference, told me in an interview. “Our public institutions aren’t functioning and our hospitals have been ransacked, leaving the sick and destitute...

South African soldiers have gathered in Uganda for a “new mission” to the Central African Republic (CAR), where 13 of their comrades were killed in a rebel coup at the weekend, South African media and a senior Ugandan officer have said. “The intention of the South Africans is to reorganise themselves and then redeploy massively in CAR and topple these rebels. They were humiliated and they want to avenge,” the ­officer said. The deaths were Pretoria’s heaviest military defeat since the end of apartheid in 1994 and president Jacob Zuma has drawn fierce criticism for reinforcing 26 military trainers in...