Three killed in CAR capital following church attack

BANGUI: Three people were killed in the capital of the Central African Republic Friday in violence coming just days after a deadly church attack in which 27 people were kidnapped.

The victims were thought to have been killed after peacekeepers opened fire on thousands of anti-government protesters.

The deeply impoverished, majority Christian country has been wracked by relentless tit-for-tat attacks between Christian vigilante groups and the mainly Muslim ex-Seleka rebels who seized control in a coup last year, but were forced from power in January.

Burundian troops belonging to the African Union´s MISCA peacekeeping force fired on "armed demonstrators" they said tried to "force their way into their base", Colonel Bengone Otsaga, head of MISCA´s police force, told AFP. Two were shot dead and several others injured, some seriously, in the clashes near the centre of the capital Bangui, the Red Cross said.

The third fatality was brought to a hospital operated by aid group Doctors Without Borders, along with five people who were injured in the violence.

Thousands of people gathered across Bangui on Friday calling for the interim government to be removed, and accusing international forces of failing to prevent Wednesday´s church attack.

The United Nations has increased the death toll from the assault on the Notre Dame de Fatima church, where some 9,000 displaced people had taken shelter, to 17.Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokeswoman for the UN´s refugee agency in Geneva, said the attack "resulted in the deaths of at least 17 displaced people and 27 civilians reportedly abducted by assailants who drove them to an unknown location." "We have no idea where they have taken them," she said.

Among those killed was the priest at the church, according to police sources and the charity.

"The attackers, who arrived on pick-up trucks in the early afternoon, threw grenades into the church ground before opening fire on people, using small arms. A priest was killed during the attack while two children and two adults succumbed to their injuries on Thursday," said Lejeune-Kaba.

"The church is now completely empty. Many fled without anything, no money, no food, not even a mat to sleep on. Others had bullet wounds that need to be attended to urgently," she said.

Members of the mostly Muslim Seleka rebels have been blamed for attacking the church, but Lejeune-Kaba said the authorities "really don´t know" if they were involved.