CAR leader pleads for calm as 30,000 flee tense capital

BANGUI: The streets of the capital of the Central African Republic were deserted Tuesday with terrified residents sheltering indoors and 30,000 seeking refuge at the airport after three days of shooting and bloodshed.
“We fear that the violence we’re seeing in Bangui is a return to the dark days of late 2013 and 2014, when thousands were killed and tens of thousands had to flee their homes,” UN refugee agency spokesman Leo Dobbs told reporters.
At least 36 people died in the last three days and 27,400 fled their homes, the United Nations said. Announcing she was cutting short a visit to UN headquarters in New York, interim President Catherine Samba Panza said in a message broadcast on national radio: “I appeal to you my compatriots for calm. I ask you to return to your homes.”
Sources close to the presidency told AFP she was expected back in Bangui late Tuesday.
In Geneva, the UNHCR’s Dobbs said 10,000 of those who fled had taken refuge at Bangui international airport, which had already been hosting around 11,000 people.
“There is great difficulty getting to the airport. There are barricades in the streets and there was shooting going on this morning,” he said. “The displaced people are reported to be in a state of shock.”
Residents said members of the feared “anti-balaka” (anti machete) Christian militia, which sprung up in 2013 to defend against mainly Muslim “Seleka” fighters, had begun gathering in Bangui on Monday.
“Groups of them, armed with machetes, have taken up positions in the streets of the 8th and 5th districts,” one of the few residents to venture out into the street told AFP.
The fighters were positioned near the city’s PK-5 shopping area, the last bastion of Muslims hounded out of other areas by the Christian militia.