{"id":21852,"date":"2015-12-13T23:37:44","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T23:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/car-crisis-gunfire-in-bangui-during-constitution\/"},"modified":"2015-12-13T23:37:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T23:37:28","slug":"car-crisis-gunfire-in-bangui-during-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/car-crisis-gunfire-in-bangui-during-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"CAR crisis: Gunfire in Bangui during constitution poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Heavy gunfire has broken out in a Muslim district of the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, during a referendum on a new constitution.}<\/p>\n

UN forces deployed after machine-gun fire and rocket launchers were used, as voters waited near a school.<\/p>\n

It is hoped the new constitution can help end more than two years of conflict in the CAR between Muslims and Christians.<\/p>\n

Presidential and parliamentary elections are also due on 27 December.<\/p>\n

The conduct of the referendum is seen a test of whether December’s elections can go ahead safely, correspondents say.<\/p>\n

Several people were reported to have been injured in the latest violence in the PK5 district of Bangui, but it is not yet clear who carried out the attack.<\/p>\n

An earlier incident left several others wounded. <\/p>\n

There were also reports of grenade explosions in the city’s Gobongo district, with three wounded according to a security source quoted by AFP.<\/p>\n

The CAR has been prey to sectarian violence since March 2013 when Muslim Seleka rebels briefly seized power, deposing the Christian President Francois Bozize.<\/p>\n

The Seleka group was then itself ousted, leading to a wave of violent reprisals against the Muslim population by the Christian anti-Balaka militia.<\/p>\n

A breakaway faction of the Seleka group has called for a boycott of December’s elections, saying conditions are not right for a fair vote.<\/p>\n

Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced since 2013.<\/p>\n

Eleven-thousand UN peacekeepers are deployed in the CAR.<\/p>\n

Some two million people have registered to vote, just under half the population.<\/p>\n

Only two weeks ago, Pope Francis visited the country and appealed to Muslims and Christians to live in harmony. <\/p>\n

\"Around<\/figure>\n

SOURCE:BBC:CAR crisis: [Gunfire in Bangui during constitution poll->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35087803]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Heavy gunfire has broken out in a Muslim district of the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, during a referendum on a new constitution.} UN forces deployed after machine-gun fire and rocket launchers were used, as voters waited near a school. It is hoped the new constitution can help end more than two years of conflict […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070837,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21852.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21852"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21852"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}