C Africa govt says 61 dead in September ‘coup bid’ unrest

BANGUI, Central African Republic: The Central African Republic said Monday more than 60 people died in violence in its capital last month and stepped up accusations that the clashes were part of an attempted coup.
”The latest toll from the violence established by hospital sources is 61 dead and 300 hurt,” said a statement from the minister of public safety, Dominique Said Panguindji, who is also the government’s spokesman.
Earlier estimates put the number of fatalities at about 40.
The violence began on September 26 after the murder of a Muslim driver and then spread to several districts of the city before French troops and UN peacekeepers from the 10,000-strong MINUSCA force restored calm.
Protestors threw up roadblocks and demanded the resignation of country’s interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza, who was attending the UN General Assembly in New York. More than 30,000 people fled from their homes.
After rushing home, Samba Panza said those behind the violence had been trying to stage a coup.
In remarks broadcast on national radio on October 1, she denounced “an orchestrated manipulation by part of the population” to incite people “to rise up and resurrect sectarian conflicts”.
That accusation was amplified in Monday’s communique.
”Whatever the pretext, this crisis, the latest in an unending series, is the result of a long-prepared and meticulous Machiavellian scheme to put a brake on the process of peace and national reconciliation and the electoral process,” it said.
”The crisis which has been imposed on us is nothing more than a coup d’etat, planned by the enemies of peace and by politicians lusting for power, seeking to overturn the transitional institutions,” it said.
”The organisers and their clearly identified accomplices staged an armed insurrection to take power by force.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking on October 1 on the sidelines of the General Assembly, said it was “clear” the violence in Bangui “seeks to destabilise the country and imperil the transition process.”
A former French colony which gained independence in 1960, the Central African Republic was shaken by months-long violence between Christians and Muslims in 2013, triggered by the ousting of the then president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels.
UN rights investigators said earlier this year that estimates of between 3,000 and 6,000 dead in that bout of fighting failed to capture “the full magnitude of the killing”.
The country was due to stage presidential and legislative elections on October 18, but the polls will have to be postponed because of delays in registering voters.
One in 10 Central Africans — 460,000 people—have sought refuge outside the country, mainly in Cameroon, Chad, DR Congo and Congo, since 2013.