'Army burned our villages'
2006-12-15 19:27
Kaga-Bandoro - The army has burned scores of villages in northwest Central African Republic during a campaign to rout rebels active in the area for weeks, displaced villagers and aid groups said.
Government officials have said some houses caught fire in crossfire between army and rebel fighters, but said they were not intentionally set ablaze.
An Associated Press reporter who accompanied a UN mission to the remote region for three days this week visited dozens of damaged villages around the provincial capital, Kaga-Bandoro.
Hundreds of burned huts could be seen in empty villages along one road running 50km northwest to Ouandago.
"Our village was burned down by the army, who accused people living here of collaborating with the rebels," said Jonas Andjeligaza, the deputy chief of Zoumbeti.
He said two elderly men were burned to death in their houses in the attack last week.
A man in another village in the area, Ngoulekpa III, said huts there were completely burned down around the same time. "Houses were set on fire after the army looted them carrying away our food," 28-year-old Arnold Ngoumale said.
Rebels in the northwest appear to be allied to a separate rebellion in the northeast that saw insurgents seize and withdraw from half a dozen towns in recent weeks after French forces stepped in to back the government.
Government officials said the army has used rockets and mortars to retaliate against rebels in the northwest and accused local inhabitants of sheltering them.
Central African Republic, an impoverished nation of 3.6 million people in the heart of Africa, has been wracked since independence by coups and army mutinies that often erupted because soldiers were unpaid.
- AP