Six months after being welcomed as saviors in the Central African Republic, the 2,000 French soldiers in the country face growing hostility from a population accusing them of failing to curb interfaith violence.

France launched Operation Sangaris in its former colony in December to stop the violence that exploded after a March 2013 coup by the mainly Muslim rebels of the Seleka alliance in the majority-Christian country.

Pope Francis prayed Sunday for victims of violence in the Central African Republic, where 27 people were kidnapped this week in an attack on a church which left 17 others dead.

He also called for greater efforts to be made to secure dialogue and peace in Ukraine, where an increasingly volatile conflict has seen European monitors detained by rebels in the country's restive east.

Three people were killed in the capital of the Central African Republic Friday in violence coming just days after a deadly church attack in which 27 people were kidnapped.

The victims were thought to have been killed after peacekeepers opened fire on thousands of anti-government protesters.

Two people were killed during anti-government protests in the Central African Republic on Friday following a wave of violent clashes across the capital Bangui. 

Troops and police fired warning shots in a bid to stop thousands of protesters who had gathered in different parts of Bangui on Friday calling for the interim government to resign, witnesses and military sources told Agence France Presse.

At least 10 people were killed and several others wounded in clashes Wednesday in the capital of the strife-torn Central African Republic, officials said.

The violence erupted during the afternoon close to the Notre-Dame de Fatima church in Bangui, according to a police officer and a military source.

French forces clashed with former members of the Central African Republic's Seleka rebellion on Saturday, a military spokesman said.

Around 20 gunmen in pick-up trucks shot at the French troops, who returned fire, destroying one of the three vehicles, Gilles Jaron said.

Nearly 30 children fleeing the war-ravaged Central African Republic have died in just a month from starvation, exhaustion and exposure after crossing into Cameroon, the U.N. said Friday.

"In the last month, the rate of deaths among refugee children has been particularly high," Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations' refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva.

Nearly ten people, most of them civilians, died when rival militias clashed earlier this week in the center of the strife-torn Central African Republic, a source in the African peacekeeping force said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the body of 26-year-old French photojournalist Camille Lepage, who was shot dead during an assignment in the country, left the capital Bangui on a French-bound cargo plane following tributes to her at a French military base, an Agence France Presse reporter said. 

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday imposed sanctions against the former Central African Republic leaders Francois Bozize and Michel Djotodia and three other officials, the White House said.

The move comes on the heels of U.N. sanctions announced Friday by the Security Council -- against three of the same five men.

At least 13 people were burned alive in the Central African Republic at the weekend when they were rounded up by armed men and barricaded inside a home that was set alight, a police source said Tuesday.

The attack was carried out by men believed to be linked to former rebels of the mainly Muslim Seleka group and the Fulani ethnic group in the region of Kaga Bandoro in the country's center, a source with the local police force said.