“UN peacekeepers shouldn’t play any part in a government policy that violates the rights of Muslims to seek safety and condemns them to deadly conditions in the enclaves,” Africa researcher at HRW Lewis Mudge was quoted as saying in the paper.
HRW added that stopping any person from leaving their own or another country to seek asylum is illegal and pointed out that in some cases UN peacekeepers resorted to the use of force to prevent Muslims from fleeing.
“The UN’s humanitarian response has been minimal, the transitional government should work with UN officials to help Muslims who want to leave and to substantially improve conditions for those who decide to remain,” the report stated.
However, the CAR interim government denounced evacuations saying that the Muslims must remain in the country to allow for reconciliation and to avoid the interpretation that the conflict was an ethnic cleansing.
CAR has been in a deep crisis since early 2013 when the primarily Muslim Seleka rebels overthrew the Christian president, Francois Bozize. A mainly Christian militia, known as the ‘Anti-Balaka’ began fighting the Seleka, while targeting Muslims in revenge attacks, as outlined in the watchdog's report.
