Bangui, Central African Republic, Jul 15, 2019 / 13:45 pm
Armed rebel groups are thwarting the prospects for success of the Central African Republic's recent peace agreement, warned the president of the country's Catholic bishops.
"The government is keeping its part of the bargain in this current peace agreement, but the armed group leaders are not really eager to implement their own part of the obligations," Bishop Nestor-Desire Nongo-Aziagbia of Bossangoa, the president of the bishops' conference in the CAR, told CNA in an interview July 15.
In February, the government signed an agreement-the Political Accord for Peace and Reconciliation-in Khartoum, Sudan, with more than a dozen rebel groups. Several other peace agreements to end the country's prolonged conflict have fallen through in recent years.
Violence has gripped the country since late 2012, when rival Muslim factions in the Northeast merged into the group "Seleka" and "anti-balaka" groups and began fomenting sectarian violence against both Christians and Muslims.