DAKAR, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Gold and diamond sales are being used to finance conflict in Central African Republic and United Nations peacekeepers should monitor mining sites to clamp down on illicit trade, a U.N. panel of experts said.
In a report, the panel also said the peacekeeping mission (MINUSCA) should deploy troops to the remote north of the country and use drones to monitor the rebel-controlled region to put an end to simmering violence there.
The mission, which launched in September, is operating at only two-thirds of its planned 12,000-strong capacity.
Central African Republic was plunged into chaos when northern, mostly Muslim Seleka rebels seized control of the majority Christian country in March 2013, prompting a vicious backlash by the largely Christian ‘anti-balaka’ militia.
The panel said that some 3,000 people had been killed between December 2013 – when the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo – and August this year. The number of civilian deaths was falling, however, the panel said.
The Kimberley Process – a group of 81 countries, including all the major diamond producers, formed to prevent ‘blood diamonds’ from funding conflict – imposed an export ban on raw gems from Central African Republic last year.
But since then, an additional 140,000 carats of diamonds, valued at $24 million, had been smuggled out of the country, the panel estimated.
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