Thirteen civilians were killed in clashes north of Bangui, the capital of the perennially restive Central African Republic, the UN mission in the country said Thursday.

Peacekeepers found “13 dead bodies in Bongboto”, about 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Bangui, on Wednesday, MINUSCA spokesman lieutenant-colonel Abdoulaziz Fall told AFP.

CAR is the second least-developed country in the world according to the UN and suffers from the aftermath of a brutal civil conflict that erupted in 2013.

MINUSCA said it would do everything “to shed light on this sad incident” and bring the attackers to justice.

The government has blamed the Coalition of Patriots for Change, created in December 2020 to try and topple President Faustin Archange Touadera, of being behind the attack.

Source: AFP