BANGUI
By Esma Ben Said
A U.N. peacekeeper was shot down on Friday during clashes between the mission's forces and Christian anti-Balaka militia in the latter's stronghold neighborhood of Boy-Rabe in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic (CAR), eyewitnesses said.
According to the witnesses, clashes erupted in the neighborhood between troops serving under the U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and the Christian militiamen, leaving at least one Burundian soldier dead.
The fighting caused dozens of people to flee their homes to the nearby Bangui airport, they added.
The clashes came one day after a Pakistani peacekeeper was killed in an attack by yet-unknown assailants in Bangui, a source from the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Eight other peacekeepers were seriously injured during the attack, the source said.
This was the first attack on the U.N. mission since its troops began to deploy around civil war-ravaged Central African Republic in mid-September.
Since last year, the minerals-rich Central African Republic has been plagued by tit-for-tat sectarian violence between Christian anti-Balaka militiamen and Muslim seleka fighters.
Anti-Muslim violence escalated after the country's president, Michel Djotodia, stepped down in January. He was replaced by Catherine Samba-Panza, a Christian who had formerly served as Bangui mayor.
Christians, who account for the majority of the country's population, accuse Muslims of supporting former seleka rebels blamed for attacking Christian homes, looting property and carrying out summary executions.
In May of this year, the United Nations Security Council mandated the 12,000-troop MINUSCA, which began deploying in September.
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