C. African President Says Will Renew Curfew in Capital

President Michel Djotodia of the strife-torn Central African Republic on Friday announced that he will shortly renew a curfew on the capital Bangui because of a surge of armed crime.

"I am imminently going to issue a decree to restore the curfew from 10:00 pm until 6:00 am," Djotodia said at a meeting of civic leaders in the presidential palace, after a similar measure was lifted last month.

"During this period, patrols will be stepped up" and "any individual" wearing uniform or carrying weapons at night will if necessary be "disarmed by force", he added, blaming "bandits" for the disturbances.

"According to information we have, machetes are being handed out in the city. To what end? Nobody knows. We have to remain vigilant," said Djotodia, who took power on the back of a rebellion in March.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Djotodia said that "exceptional measures" had been taken to provide security in the deeply poor, landlocked country, where communal and religious violence has erupted.

In Bangui, murders have been blamed on ex-rebels of the Seleka coalition led by Djotodia before he dissolved it, after toppling president Francois Bozize, who ruled for a decade.

Violence in the city culminated on November 17 with the murder of a leading judge, who was gunned down by former Seleka forces, provoking clashes in which two civilians died.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people, led by lawyers and judges, demonstrated in Bangui streets on Friday to protest against the murder, Agence France Presse reported.

The protest expressed "the anger and consternation" of people confronted by the "odious murder of our colleague", said a member of an association of magistrates, Robert Kpossa.

Since Bozize was ousted by the Seleka, the nation of five million people has lived in a climate of insecurity.

The situation on Monday led U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to envisage sending 6,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops to the country, where a regional African force of 2,500 men is currently in place.

In some regions, the violence has taken on the nature of religious strife between Muslims, a minority who made up much of the Seleka, and Christians, who account for about 80 percent of the population, leading the United States and former colonial power France to warn of the risk of genocide.