The United Nations peacekeeping contingent serving in the Central African Republic are accused of sexually abusing street children in Bangui, a UN spokesman has said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said the latest incident was the third case of alleged child sexual abuse involving peacekeepers in the CAR to have surfaced in recent months.
“If the allegations are substantiated, this would constitute a grave violation of UN principles and of the code of conduct of peacekeepers,” Dujarric said on Tuesday.
The UN mission in Bangui has notified the troop-contributing country of the new allegations and has opened an investigation, Dujarric said.
The country of origin was not identified, but a UN official said it was an African contingent.
The “member-state will be requested to take swift and appropriate punitive action”, he added.
Detailed testimony
In the wake of previous cases, the UN MINUSCA force asked Morocco to open a formal investigation after allegations that one of its soldiers raped a girl under the age of 16.
A UN report by rights investigators last year detailed testimony from children in CAR who said they were sexually abused by French troops and soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea.
The sexual abuse allegedly took place from December 2013 to June 2014, a few months before the UN took over from the African Union mission with its MINUSCA force.
Read more at aljazeera.com
