20 Killed in Grenade Attack on Bangui Funeral Service

At least 20 people died when extremists threw hand grenades at a crowd of mourners during a funeral service in the Central African Republic capital Bangui overnight, the government said on Friday.

"Around 11:00 pm (Thursday) a group of extremists, well known to the police, threw hand grenades at a crowd that was attending a wake," Public Security Minister Denis Wangao Kizimale told national radio.

"At least 20 people were killed and 11 others wounded and are currently undergoing treatment in hospital," he added.

A pregnant women and several children were among then victims a source close to the families at the funeral service told Agence France Presse.

"The government condemns this odious act. Already, an inquiry has been opened to determine the circumstances of this crime. Those responsible will be found and brought to justice," said Kizimale.

Members of the local community held an angry street protest on Friday, blaming the attack on Muslims, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

The attack comes as the United Nations refugee agency warned that foreign peacekeepers were now the only shield protecting Muslims in parts of the Central African Republic from mass slaughter.

Freshly back from the conflict-torn country, Volker Turk, a senior official from the office of the U.N. high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), said the scale of communal hatred was shocking.

Turk told reporters that he had traveled to Boda, southwest of the capital Bangui.

"You have a Muslim community essentially besieged, with a no-man's land in between the Muslim quarter and the Christian community," he said.

"There would be a massacre were it not for Sangaris. Were it not for Sangaris, that Muslim community would no longer exist," he said, referring to the name of a French peacekeeping operation.

"We see a similar situation -- and that has deteriorated over the last couple of days -- in Bangui itself," he added.

Some 8,000 foreign troops -- 2,000 from former colonial power France and most of the rest from the African MISCA force -- are trying to disarm rival militias after a year of inter-religious violence.

Thousands have been killed and around a quarter of the country's 4.6 million people -- most of them Muslims -- displaced.

The former French colony was thrown into chaos after rebels from the mainly Muslim Seleka seized power in a March 2013 coup.

They were forced out of power in January, sparking retaliatory violence against Muslims that has prompted the United Nations to speak of fears of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The mostly Christian anti-balaka militias, which were first formed as self-defense groups in response to atrocities carried out by the Seleka, persistently attack areas where Muslims live.

"The anti-balaka elements are now becoming much more militarized. There is a transformation of violence that is taking place, with especially the Muslim populations inside Bangui but also other parts of the west of the Central African Republic being increasingly threatened," said Turk.

Entire regions have been abandoned by a minority Muslim population that for decades lived peacefully alongside Christians, once the conflict took on unprecedented ethnic and religious dimensions.

Only the international community has the power to halt the crisis, said Turk.

"The government is absolutely overwhelmed and has no capacity. We should not have any illusion that we are confronted here with any functioning state structure," he said.