The northern part of the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, was cordoned off by security forces on Friday after heavy and automatic weapons fire was heard there late in the evening.
”The entire zone is cordoned off … the ex-rebels are surrounded,” said a source close to the government, referring to former fighters who helped bring President Francois Bozize to power.
The ex-rebels have been blamed for Thursday’s unrest and for clashes that killed seven people last weekend.
Residents were on Friday still fleeing northern Bangui, where heavy and automatic weapons fire was heard for two hours on Thursday evening.
”Anyone leaving the area is systematically searched because the security forces have been told that some ex-rebels are trying to slip past and blend in with the local population,” said the source.
The former rebels, whose fight against the government of ousted president Ange-Felix Patasse helped propel Bozize to power in a coup in March last year, have denied they were to blame for Thursday night’s unrest.
A spokesperson for the ex-rebels, Captain Abakar Sabon, said ”the shooting came from the security forces who wanted to take their [ex-rebel] positions”.
But a government source said ”the security forces have often been provoked by the ex-rebels” since the two sides clashed at the weekend.
And gendarmes based 12km north of Bangui said ”the shooting was first heard from the ex-rebels’ side, because they undoubtedly feared an attack, but there was none”.
The ex-rebels clashed on Saturday with security forces to press for a pay-off from the Bozize government. They ran wild for an hour in the north of Bangui, exchanging fire with army troops.
Seven people were killed and 15 injured, according to hospital and other sources.
The dead included a soldier, while Minister for Mines and Energy Sylvain N’doutingai, who is an army major, and several other members of the defence and security forces were wounded, according to a source close to the government who asked not to be named.
The rebels said on Thursday that they had no political agenda but simply wanted Bozize to stick to promises they say he made them.
The government was negotiating as late as Tuesday with the former rebels, who include fighters from neighbouring Chad as well as Central Africans, but suspended the talks once it was clear there could be no agreement, a source close to Bozize said.
The former fighters, believed to number 500, are ”demanding a million CFA francs [$1 800 dollars] each, while Bozize has offered them 150 000 CFA [$250] per person”, the source said.
Although some of the former rebels have been integrated into the regular army since last March, others have yet to disarm.
”It is the fulfilment of this promise that interests us because we want to be reinstated in civilian life. We have no political demands, and we are not being manipulated,” said Sabon on Thursday.
The former rebels have repeatedly been accused of committing rights abuses, including rape and murder, against civilians in the Central African Republic before and since Bozize was brought to power in a coup on March 15 last year.
He established a broad-based government, which has prided itself on bringing calm and law and order to Bangui, riven for years by repeated bouts of unrest, army mutinies and attempted coups.
Despite the country being rich in minerals including gold, diamonds and uranium, state coffers are ominously empty, too — the result of years of corruption under previous regimes — and Bozize’s government has defaulted in recent months on paying civil servants’ wages. — Sapa-AFP