UN to probe child sexual abuse by French soldiers in CAR
The United Nations has announced plans to investigate a recent allegation of sexual abuse of children by French forces in the Central African Republic (CAR).
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Sunday that it had called in child protection officers to conduct interviews with the minor victims after it was revealed late last week that 14 French soldiers working as UN peacekeepers in the CAR allegedly engaged in the sexual abuse of hungry refugee children by demanding sexual contact in exchange for food.
The alleged abuse reportedly took place between December 2013 and June 2014 at a center for internally-displaced people in the CAR’s capital of Bangui.
Meanwhile, the French government has claimed that a probe into such abuses has been underway since July 2014.
France deployed troops to its former colony in December 2013, nine months after Seleka fighters captured the capital and ousted President Francois Bozize.
The French troops were deployed there as part of an international peacekeeping mission to restore security to the country amid a brutal ethnic violence, with Christian militants killing Muslim residents and looting or destroying their properties.
“I think any implication that [UN human rights chief] Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein would try to cover up sexual abuse [of] children is frankly offensive and highly unlikely if you look at his personal history,” said UN Human Rights Council spokesperson, Rupert Colville, in a press briefing in Geneva.
He further underlined that Zeid, who took over as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights last September, had previously spearheaded UN work to address the scourge of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.
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