Muslims in C. African Republic bribe UN peacekeepers for help

BANGUI, Central African Republic — Surrounded by hostile Christian militias, Muslim civilians in the volatile Central African Republic town of Bangassou have paid small fortunes to United Nations contractors to hide them in vehicles and take them to safety after U.N. peacekeepers repeatedly refused to do so, according to multiple people who made the journey.

Some paid $100 each to lie under the tarp of a truck escorted by armed U.N. peacekeepers for the 435-mile journey over unpaved roads through dangerous countryside held by armed groups.

Others paid off contracted pilots to be flown to safety aboard planes that had brought food and material to U.N. troops, according to one Bangassou resident who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was concerned for his safety.

Bangassou has been a flashpoint since the conflict in Central African Republic reignited earlier this year, and already nine U.N. peacekeepers have been killed in the southeastern town. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited on Wednesday as part of efforts to highlight what he has called a forgotten crisis.

Some 2,000 Muslim civilians have sought refuge on the grounds of the Catholic church in the town, forming a makeshift camp to escape death at the hands of militias who are nominally Christian.

Ashanta Ngaye, 35, said the threat of death loomed just beyond the gate.

“Life at the cathedral is desperate,” she said. “There is no way to get out.”

So in September she decided to try to reach the capital, Bangui, with her four children and two other young relatives. They made the day-long voyage with about 30 others who also had bribed the drivers. She scrounged up nearly $200 — a massive sum in a country where most people make about a dollar a day — to pay the drivers with the Dubai-based company ECOLOG International.

It appears the U.N. was aware of the practice as early as mid-August, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.