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Rwanda sends troops to Central African Republic

Iran Press TV

Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:7AM GMT

Rwandan troops have been sent to the Central African Republic (CAR) as part of an African Union (AU) mission to the violence-hit country, Rwanda's army says.

Rwandan army chief Patrick Nyamvumba on Thursday saluted the first batch of soldiers the country is dispatching to CAR, as they boarded a US military aircraft.

The deployment came a day after the AU called on the countries in the Great Lakes region - a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift - to strengthen a peacekeeping mission in CAR to stabilize the situation in the African country.

"Besides the battalion's experience as part of the entire RDF (Rwanda Defense Force) in peacekeeping operations, it has undergone a pre-deployment training with specifics on CAR," army spokesman Joseph Nzabamwita said in statement referring to the batch of 850 soldiers.

The African-led International Support Mission to the CAR (MISCA) at present has 4,400 soldiers, but is expected to be reinforced up to 6,000.

The AU force, which already constitutes troops from Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Chad and Equatorial Guinea, and a separate mission of 1,600 French soldiers have been authorized to contain the violence in the former French colony.

Despite the troops, the sectarian violence in CAR claimed 1,000 lives last month alone.

The Central African Republic spiraled into chaos in March 2013 when Seleka fighters overthrew President Francois Bozizé and brought Michel Djotodia to power. Bozizé fled the country after his ouster.

On January 10, both Djotodia and Prime Minister Nicolas Tiengaye resigned after intense pressure over the government's failure to stem the deadly violence.

France invaded CAR on December 5, 2013, claiming that the aim of the mission is to create stability in the country in order to allow humanitarian aid to reach violence-hit areas.

MR/HMV