Fleeing Bangui

(February 7, 2014)

These are Muslims who have been kicked out of their homes in the Central Africa Republic:

That was how the BBC Arabic would introduce the clip: hundreds of thousands of Muslims are fleeing because they are being attacked by the Christians in the area.

But, when you listen to the whole news story, you learn that those Muslims had move to the area only a few months before. As far as I could tell, there had been a coup by a Muslim president, and taking him as their cue, his fellow Muslims had decided to move to the new area. 

But now, the coup is over; the Muslim president is gone; and the Muslims are being attacked; and so they are leaving, under the guard of international peacekeepers. They are going to Chad. I didn't understand all the details there. I wonder why they are going to Chad, because I don't think the report said that they originally came from Chad.

The BBC Arabic has been reporting from the Central African Republic for a while related to this on-going struggle. Sometimes, they focus on the fleeing Muslims and the attacks they face; and other times, they mention that during the presidency of the Muslim man, a lot of Muslims attacked a lot of Christians in equally brutal ways.

Luckily, when the Muslim president saw his country exploding to pieces, he decided - or was persuaded - to give up the power that he had kind of stolen. So now, this lady is the temporary president:

And here is one of the French peacekeepers helping the evacuation of Muslims:

Both the temporary president and the peacekeepers have a lot of work to do, because there's still a lot of tension, and a lot of crime happening that goes unpunished. For example, if I heard correctly, the military is accused of killing some people. The UN has called for an investigation, but it does not appear that will happen. In spite of the new president, things still seem dangerous.