UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations said Monday that a Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed and seven others wounded in the Central African Republic when a U.N. patrol was ambushed.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the attack happened Sunday in Dilapoko, a village in Mambere-Kadei Prefecture in the country’s southwest.
He said one of wounded peacekeeper was in critical condition and was taken to the capital, Bangui, for treatment at the U.N. Mission’s military hospital along with three other soldiers whose condition was serious.
The U.N. mission in Central African Republic is one of the deadliest peacekeeping missions. The country has seen deadly interreligious and intercommunal fighting since 2013, when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the capital and mainly Christian anti-Balaka militias fought back.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attack and urged the Central African Republic’s government “to spare no effort” in identifying and bringing the perpetrators to justice, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The spokesman said the peacekeeper’s death “brings to four the number of peacekeepers killed in targeted attacks in the Central African Republic since January 2018.”
Dujarric said the secretary-general “pays tribute to all of the courageous men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of peace in the Central African Republic” and “recalls that attacks against United Nations peacekeepers may constitute a war crime and that sanctions can be applied against the perpetrators.”
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