Nearly 200 people took part in a demonstration in support of China and Russia on Wednesday in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, four days after the murder of 9 Chinese at a mining site in the center of the country.
The rally of nearly 200 people at the call of the Republican Front, close to power, began in the morning and ended at midday at the foot of the monument of homage to the armed forces (FACA) and its Russian allies.
“We love Wagner”
The demonstrators waved Russian flags and banners proclaiming in particular "
Support for China
" or "
Russia is Wagner, we love Russia and we love Wagner
", and laid a wreath in front of the Chinese Embassy. .
On Sunday, 9 Chinese nationals were killed in an attack on a mining site in the center of the country.
A commission of inquiry was opened while Chinese President Xi Jinping called for "
severe punishment
" of the culprits.
“
We are here to share the pain of the Chinese population, which is an essential partner in construction in the Central African Republic
,” Saint-Clair Banga-Bingui, deputy secretary of the Republican Front, told AFP.
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Bangui accuses the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), an alliance of rebel groups created in December 2020 to overthrow President Faustin Archange Touadéra, of being behind the attack.
The rebel alliance rejected these accusations, pointing the finger at the “
Russian mercenaries (of the paramilitary organization) Wagner
” with the complicity of the government.
At the end of the rally, several dozen demonstrators were paid 15,000 CFA francs (23 euros) by the Republican Front for their participation, noted an AFP journalist.
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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 armed groups which then shared two-thirds of the territory had launched an offensive on Bangui and Faustin Archange Touadéra had called on Moscow to the rescue of its impoverished army.
Hundreds of Russian paramilitaries had then joined the few hundred already present since 2018, making it possible to repel the rebels' offensive and then to drive them back from a large part of the territories and cities they controlled, but without being able to resettle everywhere and permanently. the presence and authority of the Central African state.