France to send troops as UN warns of chaos in C. Africa

France said today it would send hundreds of extra troops to the strife-torn Central African Republic after the UN warned the country was descending into "complete chaos".
Calls were growing for an international reaction to the violence in CAR amid warnings that the mineral-rich but desperately poor nation was facing a "catastrophe of epic proportions."
Reports have described a litany of horrors in the landlocked, sprawling country, with security forces and militia gangs razing villages, carrying out public execution-style killings and perpetrating widespread rapes.
France has proposed a UN Security Council resolution that would authorise international troops to use force in its former colony and today Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Paris would deploy about 1,000 troops to assist a beleaguered African mission.

Le Drian told Europe 1 radio the deployment would be "for a short period, in the range of about six months".
CAR Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye said yesterday that France had talked of adding 800 troops to the 410 French soldiers already based in the capital, Bangui.

Lying in the heart of Africa, CAR has struggled with a series of coups and rebel uprisings since independence in 1960.
The latest crisis began when a coalition of rebels known as Seleka forced president Francois Bozize to flee in March and replaced him with a rebel leader, Michel Djotodia - the country's first Muslim president.

A transitional government has since lost control of the country of some 4.5 million people.
In some parts of CAR, fighting has broken out between mainly Muslim former rebels and militia groups set up to protect Christian communities, which make up about 80 per cent of the population.
Western officials and rights groups have said inter-religious tensions are on the rise, with some in France, the United Nations and the United States warning of the risk of possible genocide.
The UN estimates that at least 400,000 people, or 10 per cent of the population, have been forced from their homes by the crisis.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said today that the violence could spread to neighbouring countries.
"It is not called Central Africa for nothing... If the centre of Africa implodes, you will see the consequences," Fabius said.