Nine Chinese have been killed at a mining site in the Central African Republic amid a civil war, an attack denounced by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who on Monday called for the culprits to be “punished harshly”.
The attack took place around 5 a.m. local time (4 a.m. GMT) on Sunday in the Bambari region in the center of the African country, the municipality’s mayor, Abel Matchipata, told AFP.
“We counted nine dead and two wounded,” he said.
According to him, the victims are Chinese nationals working at a Gold Coast Group Company mining site 25 km away, which was attacked by “armed men”.
China on Monday confirmed the toll, citing “two seriously injured” but without giving further details about the circumstances surrounding the attack, which has not been the subject of a lawsuit so far.
Xi Jinping “called for making every effort to treat the injured” and “punish the killers severely and in accordance with the law,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“With the exception of the capital Bangui, the security risk in the other regions of the Central African Republic is red, i.e. extremely high,” the ministry said, urging Chinese citizens “to evacuate as soon as possible.” fast” dangerous areas.
“Despicable and barbaric”
The bodies of victims of the attack were taken to the Friendship Hospital in Bangui, where Chinese Ambassador Li Qinfeng and Central African Foreign Minister Sylvie Baipo Temon are staying, an AFP journalist noted.
The Patriots for Change (CPC) Coalition, an alliance of rebel groups formed in December 2020 to overthrow President Faustin Archange Touadéra, on Sunday denied any involvement in the attack.
She denounced an “unworthy and barbaric” act and accused the “Russian mercenaries (the paramilitary organization) Wagner” of being behind it.
The Central African Republic, the second least developed country in the world according to the UN, has been the scene of a civil war since 2013, which was very deadly in the early years but has decreased in intensity since 2018.
In late 2020, the most powerful of the many armed groups then sharing two-thirds of the territory had launched an offensive on Bangui just ahead of the elections and Mr Touadéra had called on Moscow to save its impoverished army.
Hundreds of Russian paramilitaries then joined the few hundred who had been present since 2018.
It had made it possible to repel the rebel offensive in a few months and then push them back from a large part of the areas and cities they controlled, without however being able to restore the rebel presence and authority everywhere and permanently rebels Central African State.