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French soldiers killed in Central African Republic | French soldiers killed in Central African Republic |
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Two French soldiers have been killed in the Central African Republic after clashing with militia forces they had ordered to disarm. | |
After being told of the deaths, President François Hollande announced he would fly directly from Nelson Mandela's funeral to Bangui where around 1,600 French troops have been deployed alongside 2,500 African Union forces to try to stop the bloodshed between religious factions and restore order. | |
The two men, from the 8th Regiment of Marine Infantry Parachutists, based at Castres in southern France, were reportedly killed overnight in an exchange of fire with former Séléka rebels, as they patrolled the perimeter of the city's airport. | |
The seriously injured men were transported to a field hospital, but could not be saved, said military sources in the CAR. | |
In a statement, Hollande's office praised their bravery and said the men, who died just five days into Operation Sangaris, had "lost their lives to save many others". | |
French troops were sent to the CAR after being given the go-ahead by the United Nations security council on Thursday, following a series of massacres that left more than 450 people dead, many of them women and children. | |
They began disarming former rebels and militia who had carried out a series of bloody reprisals over recent weeks and sown terror among the population of the CAR, especially in the capital. | |
Members of the Séléka, a mostly Muslim coalition, as well as other armed groups, had been given an ultimatum to return to their bases and hand over their weapons. | |
On Monday evening, French military officials announced they were mostly satisfied with how the operation was progressing and announced that "the population is no longer threatened". | |
The military spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron told journalists that most armed groups had been cleared from Bangui's streets. | |
"There was no fighting in Bangui. At no moment did these groups try to engage in combat against us," Jaron said. | |
He said French troops had come up against "furtive firing" and had briefly fired back, but he said these exchanges had now stopped. | |
In a statement, the Elysée presidential palace said: "The president of the republic has learned with profound sadness the deaths in combat of the two soldiers … the head of state expresses his profound respect for the sacrifice of these two soldiers and renews his full confidence in the French forces deployed, alongside the African forces, to re-establish security in the Central African Republic, to protect the population, and to guarantee access to humanitarian aid." | |
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