UN weighs peacekeeping cuts in Central African Republic as mandate expires

The fate of the peacekeepers in the Central African Republic will be decided this Thursday in New York.

The UN Security Council is set to decide on the renewal of MINUSCA’s mandate, which expires this weekend. On the table is a gradual reduction of the mission. Deployed in 2014, in the midst of a civil war, MINUSCA has already begun scaling back its operations.

Between January and June, it closed or relocated 21 of its bases. It still has nearly 10,000 military personnel and 2,000 police officers. The situation has improved since the worst days of the conflict. However, several armed groups remain active, particularly in the border areas with Chad, Sudan, and the DRC. In the southeast, attacks attributed to remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army reportedly left four people dead between June and September.

Approximately 68 civilians, including 40 children, were reportedly abducted. In June, an attack in Am-Dafock, on the Sudanese side of the border, reportedly left 29 people dead and displaced some 17,500 people. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is calling for a phased withdrawal.