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The United Nations reported Friday more accusations of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, for the the second time in six months.
The acts of abuse took place in 2014, near the M'Poko camp that hosts refugees, close to the Bangui airport.
Investigators from UNICEF only found out earlier this month after carrying out interviews with five girls and one boy aged between 7 and 16-years-old from the CAR, who mentioned rapes or purchased sex by soldiers from Georgia and France.
"These are extremely serious accusations and it is crucial that these cases are thoroughly and urgently investigated," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a press conference.
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#Bangui - MP @UN_CAR patrols by Peacekeepers'camp / part of new measures to help address sexual exploitation & abuse pic.twitter.com/WjrlDFEJPq
— MINUSCA (@UN_CAR)
15 Janvier 2016
After welcoming the initial responses by the countries concerned and the European Union as a whole, the state official deplored that “far too many of these crimes continue to go unpunished, with the perpetrators enjoying full impunity … This simply encourages further violations.”
Rupert Colville, the spokesperson for the human rights office added that now about 10 international contingents of peacekeepers had been involved in such cases.
French authorities, for instance, have still not made any real advances in the investigation over its soldiers accused of child abuse in 2014.
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Earlier in 2015, the U.N. said in a report that 480 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse had been made between 2008 and 2013, of which a third involved minors, in countries where U.N. peacekeepers operated, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Haiti and South Sudan. The U.N. currently has almost 11,000 peacekeeping personnel in CAR. There are also some 5,600 African Union peacekeepers and an additional 2,000 French troops in the country.
