Christians living in the Central African Republic (CAR)
are more vulnerable to attack from Muslim extremists since Islamic rebels
seized control of the area over four months ago, according to reports.
The ex-President of the CAR, Francois Bozize was forced
into exile on March 24 of this year when Islamic mercenaries from Chad and
Sudan joined forces to form a militant coalition called Seleka. Michel
Djotodia, a leader of the Seleka Islamic group took over as president.
Lewis Mudge of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that it was
clear that since the Seleka group took over, Muslims have been profiting and
Christians have been further persecuted. He added that Christian places of
worship have frequently been attacked by Seleka agents.
According to Mudge, Djotodia made a request for support
from the Saudi Arabia-based Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 2012 in
which he pledged to impose Islamic law, or sharia, when they took power of the
CAR.
Djotodia denies writing the request for help and the
pledge it contained, however, a copy of the correspondence reportedly states
that Djotodia wrote “God willing and we come to Bangui; we will put in place a
regime to apply Islamic sharia law.” It continues “Even if we fail to hunt
Bozize, we will transform a part of the Central African
Republic, Chadand Darfurinto a new Islamic Republic.”
The letter was marked confidential and it was a request
for materials and financial support from the OIC to overthrow the Bozize
government. Catholic and Evangelical leaders
happened to obtain a copy of the letter and forwarded it to Djotodia, but he
reportedly denied that he had ever written it.
A National Transitional Council was created to act in
place of the dissolved parliament. The
Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame is part of that Council and the leader of CAR’s
Evangelical Alliance.
Guerekoyame and other leaders of the CAR Evangelical
Alliance sent a letter to Djotodia on May 10 which stated that since Seleka’s
rise to power, the Christian population had been victims of various vicious
attacks which included priests and pastors being assaulted and nuns raped.
The letter continued that since Selaka came to power,
there has been an unprecedented violation of human rights that also included
killings and murders, threats and intimidation, abductions, torture and summary
executions, rape of women and nuns, destruction of churches and violence
against priests and pastors.
Even though Guerekoyame is a member of the National
Transitional Council and he is supposed to have immunity, he was arrested on
August 6 for criticizing the government at a church inBangui. However, he was
released later that same day.
Read more: All Christian news
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