A Cameroonian member of the UN peackeeping force in northwestern Central African Republic has been killed in a landmine blast and five others wounded, the United Nations said.
The region regularly sees clashes between rebel groups and the CAR army backed by mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group.
Soldiers from Cameroon’s contingent of the UN peacekeeping force were escorting a team from the International Organization for Migration on Monday when the device exploded, the MINUSCA mission said in a statement seen by AFP on Wednesday.
It went off as the convoy passed by i n the village of Mbindale, 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of the capital Bangui, it added.
Two of the wounded are “seriously” hurt and all have been taken to hospitals, MINUSCA said.
The explosion happened around 20 km from the site of a December 21 massacre of 23 civilians by armed elements of the 3R rebel group.
UN peacekeepers were subsequently deployed to the village of Nzakoudou where the killings took place.
The 3R is one of the most powerful of the armed groups and criminal gangs produced by years of civil war that operate in the region.
Civilians ar e often victims of the conflict, with the United Nations accusing all sides of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Civil war has plagued the CAR, one of the world’s poorest countries, since a Muslim-dominated armed coalition called the Seleka ousted former president Francois Bozize in 2013.
He raised his own predominantly Christian and animist militias, known as the anti-Balaka, to try to regain power.
French intervention and deployment of UN peacekeepers paved the way for elections in 2016 which Faustin Archange Touadera won.
President Touadera rep elled a rebel siege of the capital Bangui IN late 2020 with the help of Russian paramilitaries, but some areas of the country remain outside government control.