Barricades Come Down as Tense Calm Returns to Bangui

Peacekeepers and protesters on Wednesday removed barricades set up in the Central African Republic capital Bangui during a wave of violence that killed at least 36 people and forced 30,000 to flee.

Interim president Catherine Samba Panza was on her way home from the U.N. General Assembly after cutting short her visit to New York amid fears of a return to sectarian conflict.

For the first time however since the latest wave of unrest broke out at the weekend, looting abated overnight. Four petrol stations reopened, as did several shops.

A tense calm returned after Samba Panza made an appeal for peace and urged citizens to return to their homes in an address over national radio late Tuesday.

U.N. peacekeepers and French soldiers deployed in the country since December 2013 began on Wednesday removing the barricades blocking the roads around Bangui international airport, where some 20,000 people have taken refuge near French and U.N. bases.

International and Central African troops patrolled the streets side by side, asking protesters to clear the roads, an AFP journalist said.

Fear still gripped the streets after at least 36 people were killed and 27,400 fled their homes in just three days since the latest violence erupted Saturday, according to U.N. figures.

The trigger was the murder of a motorcycle-taxi driver in central Bangui's Muslim-majority PK-5 neighborhood, angering Muslims who carried out reprisals against Christians in nearby districts using grenades and guns.

Around 100 people were wounded in the bloodshed, prompting the government to impose a curfew on the capital.

The murder also prompted widespread protests against Samba Panza, with activists setting up barricades on many of Bangui's main thoroughfares.

The inter-religious violence raised fears of a return to the conflict that erupted more than two years ago in the landlocked, impoverished country after president Francois Bozize, a Christian, was ousted by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, triggering the worst crisis since independence in 1960.

Unlike other parts of the city, the PK-5 and the eighth districts were still very tense Wednesday, residents said.

In 2013 and early last year, the PK-5 area was the epicenter of an unprecedented wave of violence pitting Christians against Muslims.

On Monday members of the feared "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) Christian militia, which sprang up in 2013 to fight the Seleka rebels, had begun gathering in Bangui.

Some 20,000 terrified residents fled to camps by the airport, where French and U.N. peacekeepers from the 10,000-strong MINUSCA force are based.

One in 10 Central Africans -- 460,000 people -- have sought refuge outside the country, mainly in Cameroon, Chad, DR Congo and Congo, since 2013.

MINUSCA denied reports that its troops on Monday killed three people and injured others after opening fire on a crowd of several hundred demonstrators heading towards the presidency to demand Samba Panza's resignation.

U.N. spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva that some 500 prisoners had escaped from Bangui's main prison on Monday night, adding to the climate of insecurity.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday it was "alarmed by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Bangui" and had been unable to work in the capital since Sunday.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the country, Aurelien Agbenonci, strongly condemned attacks against aid organizations, adding: "All perpetrators of crimes against humanitarians will be held accountable."

Looters targeted the offices of the U.N. World Food Program, French medical NGO Premiere Urgence and the Dutch NGO Cordaid, police said, indicating that they had repelled them in several places.

Presidential and legislative elections are due by the end of the year, but have already been pushed back several times.