CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: PEACEKEEPER KILLED AS HE RESCUES GIRL FROM GANG RAPE

November 24, 2003 – (IRIN) Armed robbers killed a Chadian soldier serving with the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC) peacekeeping force when his squad attempted to rescue a 14-year-old girl from rape on Sunday in a suburb of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), an official told IRIN.

WO Ngueubla Etienne South was in the 10-man squad that had gone to rescue the family of a gendarmerie officer whose home was under armed attack by the robbers, the commander in chief of the CEMAC force, Rear-Adml Martin Mavoungou, said on Monday.

The robbers ambushed the soldiers on their way to gendarme's home, near the Ngola cattle market and 14 km from the city centre, at about 3 a.m.

"As the place was not accessible by vehicles the soldiers had to walk to reach the scene of the attack," Mavoungou said.

He said the two turbaned robbers who were raping the gendarme's daughter wore a mixture of civilian and military clothes. He added that no other
soldier was wounded and that none of the robbers had been arrested.

Investigations have been launched into the attack, he said.

This was the third gang-rape incident by armed men in Bangui within a month. On 28 October, five CAR soldiers gang-raped a woman in another
suburb. The five have since been dismissed from the army and are to be put on trial.

State-owned Radio Centrafrique reported another gang rape on Thursday by five armed men in Bangui's Boeing suburb. It is not clear if the rapists
were soldiers.

Hours after Ngueubla's killing, Bozize visited Ndjamena, capital of Chad, where he expressed his condolences to the Chadian people and government.

In joint communiqué issued at the end of the day-long visit, Bozize and Chadian President Idriss Deby announced that they would, in the near
future, call a meeting of the joint CAR-Chad commission. The commission was set up to rectify the insecurity on the border of the two countries.
With 139 soldiers from Gabon, 121 from the Republic of Congo and 120 from Chad, the CEMAC force has the mandate to secure Bangui, provincial towns and the country's major transport routes. Together with the CAR forces, it has carried out security and disarmament sweeps in Bangui and the provinces, which has contributed to the restoration of security in most regions.