CAR agrees peace deals with two rebel groups
The Central African Republic's government has signed peace deals with two of the five groups in the country's most powerful armed rebel movement, officials said Friday.
The agreements were signed last week in Chad, which acted as mediator.
"They committed to immediately ceasing hostilities upon signing the agreements on April 19... under the auspices of the guarantor, Chad," General Henry Wanzet Linguissara said.
The CAR is among the poorest countries in the world and, since independence from France in 1960, has endured a succession of coups, authoritarian rulers and civil wars.
The latest civil war started more than a decade ago. The government has secured the main cities and violence has subsided in recent years.
But fighting occasionally erupts in remote regions between rebels and the national army, which is backed by Wagner mercenaries and Rwandan troops.
The two predominantly Fulani armed groups that signed peace agreements are the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) and the 3R Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation group.
No details on the terms of the agreements or a timeframe were released.
But Linguissara said the two groups had "committed to reintegrating into the peace process" struck by the government with 14 armed groups in 2019.
The UPC and the 3R had left the process in 2021.
"We are waiting for this desire (for peace) to materialise on the ground," government spokesman Maxime Balalou said.
The two groups are part of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), founded in December 2020 with the aim of overthrowing President Faustin Archange Touadera after he was re-elected for a second term.
It is headed by exiled ex-president Francois Bozize, who seized power in 2003 in a coup and was in turn ousted by a Muslim-dominated armed coalition called the Seleka.
Now living in exile in Guinea-Bissau, Bozize is the target of an arrest warrant issued by a United Nations-sponsored tribunal in the CAR for possible crimes against humanity.
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