allAfrica.com: Central African Republic: Open Season for Bandits (Page 1 of 3)

Known variously as coupeurs de routes (highwaymen), Zaraguina or simply bandits, criminal gangs who kill, kidnap for ransom, loot and set fire to homes now pose the greatest threat to civilians in the north of the Central African Republic (CAR).

Their attacks have prompted tens of thousands of people to flee their villages to a precarious life in the nearby bush, hindered access to fields and markets, reduced imports along key trade routes, especially from Cameroon, and delayed the return of CAR refugees living in neighbouring Chad.

"The main threat to security in the country lies with these criminals," Jean-Sebastian Munie, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in CAR told IRIN.

The gangs are well-organised, well-connected and in large part foreign, travelling across the porous borders with Chad and Cameroon and even from as far away as Nigeria and Niger.

Andre's story

"On 28 December, 2007, I was cycling back to Bosangoa [a town in the northwest of CAR] with two other people after a fishing trip, when seven highwaymen armed with Kalashnikovs came out of the bush and set upon us. They had already abducted five other people.

"When people in the area realised what was going on they prepared to attack the bandits, but the bandits surrounded themselves with the eight people they had captured to prevent the villagers shooting at them. After a full day's walk, we reached their camp, where there were about 50 bandits, all of them foreigners. There were many other kidnapped people there, but they came and went as their ransoms were paid. On one day I counted 21 abductees chained together.

"When they took me I had 20,000 CFA francs (about US$450) on me from selling the fish. At the base, the bandits registered us and demanded a ransom of a million francs (US$2,200). Four young boys among the abductees were beaten up and told to take the list of those kidnapped to our mayor so he could tell our families to pay the ransom.

"I didn't have much money so my relatives sold some things, raising another 80,000 francs. When my son turned up with this at the camp, my captors said that was good for tea, and sent him away to get more. So my wife had to sell everything from our farm, which amounted to 150,000 francs. The bandits complained this still was not enough, but after beating me again, they let me go.

"During my abduction I suffered a lot and my house was destroyed in a fire."

George's story

"I used to work as a motorbike-taxi driver. One day in October last year I was riding back to town when all of a sudden two armed men appeared in front of me, and another two behind. Soon there were six in all, and nine abductees. They took my motorbike and told me to identify the people in the village who had money. When I said I didn't know they started to beat me and threatened to kill me.

"A few other people in the village were taken as well and after walking for 11 days we reached the bandits' camp at a place called Bilakare. This is a well known bandit stronghold. Many of them spoke Arabic, others the Peulh language.

"I spent three months there, chained up all the time together with 47 other prisoners, sleeping in the open, with no opportunity to wash. They did not feed us properly. We were badly beaten up, especially those who came from pro-government areas.

"They asked my family to pay two million CFA francs in ransom (US$4,400). They couldn't raise that much, even when they sold the cotton harvest and some of their land, but when they paid 775,000 francs I was released.

"This has happened to many people I know, including my brother-in-law. Now I have no bike and no work."

Little stands in their way. FACA, as the armed forces are known in CAR, a country roughly the size of France where state infrastructure barely exists outside the capital, comprise just 5,000 troops. But only half of these are thought to be on active duty.

For years, CAR and neighbouring Chad have been ravaged by numerous civil wars, rebellions and mutinies that have led to a proliferation of weapons and to a blurring of the lines between bandits and rebels. Although this article focuses mainly on CAR, highway banditry and kidnapping have long be a trans-national problem in this region, unfettered by weak state borders and fuelled by chronic and endemic under-development and unemployment.

Worsening security

A military coup that brought General François Bozize to power in 2003 deepened a security vacuum in northern CAR. Many of those who helped the former army chief to Bangui, including Chadian mercenaries, have also since turned to banditry, feeling that Bozize failed to deliver on alleged promises of recompense.

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