In the Central African Republic, Wagner continues to thrive

After the town of Zémio, Mboki, Obo, Bambouti… in May, the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) regained a foothold in areas bordering the laterite road ribbon in the extreme southeast of Central Africa. Republic , Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the border with South Sudan. The Haut-Mbomou area was for many years in the hands of Unity for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), one of the many remnant armed movements of the Séléka, the major insurgency of the early 2010s.

1,300 kilometers away, Central African soldiers marched on May 22, applauded by the population, in the streets of Chad’s gateway to Chad (the north), closed for ten years and the army withdrawn. In Bangui, if we welcome this redeployment of the National Security Forces, we will not forget to recall it, as Communications Minister Maxim Palau said. “Without intervention [des] Russian allies, none of this is possible”.

“Strong and Cruel Way”

A European diplomat reluctantly agrees: “There are pockets of insecurity along the country’s borders, but overall, the strong and brutal method used by the Wagner group’s Russian mercenaries has paid off and they have been able to regain control of population centers. » “Central African armed groups have left the provinces and dispersed into the countryside”, Paul Crescent, spokesperson for the Central African Civil Society Task Force observes Beninga.

Some warlords played the game of the Khartoum peace deal brokered by Moscow in early 2019. Sometimes they laid down their arms to enter the government. Others, like long-time rebel Ali Tarassa, travel between Sudan and Chad. But above all, the Patriotic Coalition for Change (CPC) has deteriorated.

The country’s most powerful militant group – Christian or Muslim – vowed to oust President Faustin-Archange Tutera from power and drive the Russians out of the country. Its main instigator, former head of state François Bozizé (2003-2013), has been in forced exile in Guinea-Bissau for fourteen months under an international arrest warrant.

In 2021, a CPC attack on the Penguin gates was broken by an unprecedented defense line independently formed by private military firm Wagner and Rwandan Special Forces Russian mercenaries called to the rescue as part of a bilateral agreement. Thus pushed back to the borders or deep into the jungles, the rebels could not prevent FACA and their Russian allies from gradually reasserting themselves.

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