BANGUI - An angry crowd killed a Muslim man in the capital of Central African Republic overnight, decapitating and burning his corpse, and in revenge Muslims killed a taxi driver, witnesses said Wednesday. The incident brings to seven the number killed in the latest inter-communal attacks that began on Sept. 29 despite the presence of U.N. peacekeepers.
The Muslim man was chased by Christian 'anti-balaka' militiamen in the northern suburb of Gobongo because he was suspected of having thrown a grenade from a bus into a market, injuring several, the witnesses said. Red Cross officials returned the corpse to a Muslim neighborhood for burial. The revenge killing was of a taxi driver, said Ousmane Abakar, a spokesman for Muslims in the city. "It was in retaliation for the (initial) act that was committed," Abakar said.
The former French colony has been gripped by violence since Michel Djotodia led Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim rebels and some fighters from neighboring Chad and Sudan, in an assault on the capital Bangui, seizing power in March 2013. Most Muslims have fled the south of the country, creating a de facto partition.
