BANGUI: Hundreds of Muslims marched in their last major enclave in Central African Republic’s capital Bangui on Saturday, protesting against a call by the president that they disarm and demanding their safe evacuation from the city.

A tense calm has returned to Bangui following two days of violence ignited by an attack by Muslim gunmen on a church on Wednesday.

In a televised address on Friday, Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza promised that those responsible for the church attack would be punished and that Bangui, including the Muslim-dominated PK5 neighborhood, would be disarmed.

“We are defending ourselves because we have no one,” Ousmane Abakar, one of the march organizers told Reuters. “If they are going to disarm PK5, they have to disarm the entire city at the same time, because every neighborhood in Bangui is armed.”

Central African Republic has been gripped by ethnic and religious violence since northern Seleka rebels, who are mostly Muslim, seized power in the mainly Christian nation in 2013.

Seleka left power in January under international pressure and since then anti-balaka Christian militias have preyed on Muslims.

Those attacks have largely driven Muslims from Bangui and the west, effectively partitioning the country, whose east is controlled mainly by Seleka.

Several thousand Muslims, however, remain in PK5.

“We are the victims of the anti-balaka,” said Abakar. “We call on the international community to come take us to where there is peace.”

The church attack — the worst on the Christian population since Seleka left power — stoked frustration at Samba-Panza’s failure to return peace to country, despite the presence of 2,000 French troops and 6,000 African Union peacekeepers.

At least 17 people were killed in the attack, according to UN officials, and another 27 were abducted. In response, angry Christians paralyzed the city, setting up barricades, burning tires and attacking a mosque.

Burundian peacekeepers shot dead two people on Friday after they said they came under fire during the citywide protests.