BANGUI: The United Nations has accused armed groups, including one linked to the military, of raping and murdering civilians in the Central African Republic (CAR) during attacks in October and January.
"The attacks were directed and coordinated by elements of Wagner Ti Azande (WTA), an armed group with ties to the national army," the UN said in a report released on Wednesday.
WTA is an offshoot of Azande Ani Kpi Gbe (AAKG), which was "also involved in carrying out the attacks" in the southern regions of Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou, the report said.
The victims were mainly adults and children from Muslim communities, and refugees from predominantly Muslim Sudan.
At least 24 people were killed, some by being tied up and thrown alive into a river, according to the investigators from MINUSCA, the UN stabilisation force in the CAR.
"These horrible crimes must not go unpunished. Accountability is fundamental to ensure such violations never happen again," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
He called for "the ties between the WTA group and the national army to be clarified".
Turk’s office (OHCHR) said the WTA –- and to a lesser extent the AAKG -- had engaged in "summary executions... gang rape, forced labour, torture and other forms of cruel... treatment, as well as the looting of homes and commercial stores".
The WTA evolved from the AAKG, which was set up in February 2023, purportedly to protect the Zande community from attacks by a Fulani rebel group called the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC).
The predominantly Christian Zande are the largest ethnic group in Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou. The Fulani are mainly Muslim.
WTA fighters are affiliated to the army. They were trained by Russian paramilitary group Wagner in May 2024, when the government attempted to regain control of the southern regions, according to the report.
"Central African Muslim populations and Sudanese asylum seekers" were particularly targeted because they were considered favourable to the UPC," it said.
CAR authorities said 14 suspects had been arrested in Haut-Mbomou and the capital, Bangui.
CAR is among the poorest countries in the world despite its rich subsoil and, since independence from France in 1960, has endured a succession of coups, authoritarian regimes and civil wars.
The latest civil war started more than a decade ago.
The government has secured the main cities and violence has subsided somewhat 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.
Rights group Human Rights Watch said violence affected 2.8 million people last year.
Despite moves to return people to their homes, an estimated 1.2 million Central Africans are still either refugees or internally displaced, according to the UN.