For a few weeks earlier this year, no one needs an alarm clock to wake up in Bangui. The sound of gunfire, sometimes sustained and heavy, has become a morning ritual in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital city. To most people here, identifying where the shots come from is a survival skill.
Worse still, since early December 2013, Christians, but more so members of the Muslim minority, risk their lives each time they venture out of their now segregated neighbourhoods – a troubling sign of a deepening religious divide. Killings happen daily. On occasion, cheering crowds have participated in chilling acts of lynching, only to return to normal life thereafter, as if nothing had happened.
On 5 February, not far from downtown Bangui, soldiers from the regular army lynched a suspected militia combatant. It did not seem to matter to them that journalists were filming the scene…
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