2021 Boyo killings

5°43′33″N 21°29′09″E / 5.7258°N 21.4857°E / 5.7258; 21.4857

Between 6 and 16 December 2021, a number of Muslim civilians were killed and injured by Anti-balaka fighters supported by government forces and Russian mercenaries in the Boyo commune, located in the Ouaka prefecture of the Central African Republic (CAR). These civilians were attacked for their alleged links with Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) rebels. The attacks are part of the larger CAR Civil War which has been ongoing since 2012.

In August 2021, security forces approached former Anti-balaka leader in Bambari and asked him to remobilizie his fighters to fight against UPC rebels. FACA operations in Boyo against UPC elements resumed on 24 November 2021, causing numerous injuries and deaths among the opposing parties. New fighting took place in Boyo on the night of 26-27 November. Operations continued on the roads leading to Boyo, which reportedly resulted in a number of civilian deaths and injuries. In November 2021 around 240 Anti-balaka fighters on board six Russian military vehicles left Bambari towards Tagbara. From there they continued on foot through the village of Zoumoko and, on 1 December 2021, Atongo-Bakari before reaching Boyo, with the objective of neutralizing the UPC rebels and their accomplices.

On 6 December 2021, at dawn, according to concordant sources, around 240 assailants, mainly men but among them eight women, at the very least, entered the village of Boyo, under the command of the Anti-balaka general Edmond. They were described by witnesses as wearing mostly civilian clothes and armed with home-made guns, Kalashnikovs and grenades, but mainly with bladed weapons such as machetes. At the same time, residents heard the first gunshots, including a stray bullet fatally hitting a 12-year-old girl. Between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., the assailants forced Muslim men from Boyo to gather at the market place, sparing the Christians, under the threat of their weapons. At this place, they demanded that everyone present an identity document and pay a sum ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 CFA francs to be released. The assailants also seized several motorcycles and demanded amounts varying between 10,000 and 40,000 CFA francs for each individual who wanted to recover his motorcycle. On the same day, around 6:30 p.m., three anti-Balaka leaders under the command of Edmond sent one of their fighters to summon the interim mayor of Boyo and two other members of the Muslim community. Upon the arrival of these three representatives, the Anti-balaka leaders accused the Muslim inhabitants of Boyo of being rebels and threatened to kill them all at the first shot of the UPC rebels. The three anti-balaka leaders said they had been sent by the government to drive out the UPC rebels and that they planned to stay there for a month.

On 7 December 2021, around 5 a.m., armed elements identified as UPC fighters tried to counterattack with firearms but were routed by the much more numerous Anti-balaka attackers. Following this attempted incursion, the attackers set fire to houses, specifically targeting dwellings belonging to Muslims. If, by mistake, houses of Christian inhabitants were set on fire, they extinguished the fire themselves. Around 7 a.m., the attackers then gathered Muslim men, women and children inside and around the mosque, between 700 and 800 people according to concordant testimonies. Edmond, one of the Anti-balaka leaders, took a grenade in his hand, threatening to kill all the villagers gathered in the mosque. The acting mayor of Boyo knelt before him, waving the CAR national flag, and kept begging him for 30 minutes to reconsider before he backed down from carrying out his threat. The Muslim women and girls were released the same morning and huddled together in a few houses for safety. Between 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., the attackers executed 17 members of the Muslim community, all men, at different locations in the village of Boyo. The majority of the 17 Muslims were beheaded or slit with machetes. The head of one of the 17 victims was exposed in front of the mosque while his genitals were displayed in the village market. The bodies of the victims were picked up and buried by members of the Christian community of the village, often under the supervision of the attackers. Such was the case for 14 of them buried in a mass grave in the Muslim cemetery. According to several witnesses, some victims were buried alive, after being seriously injured with machetes. The first machete injuries were also recorded during the same period, one of the victims, a man, was interrogated at 5 a.m. on December 7, 2021, by the attackers who accused him of being a Seleka general. Around 4 p.m., this victim was beheaded by a 30-year-old woman (from Seko) designated as the aide-de-camp of Anti-balaka leader Edmond. His head was carried through Boyo by the attackers. Another man had his throat slit in the evening between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. and was buried less than 5 meters from his place of execution.

On 8 December 2021, around 1 p.m., the attackers left Boyo in search of two Muslim brothers in their village in Komayé located 12 km from Boyo on the Tagbara axis. They found them, injured them with machetes and demanded a ransom of 5 million CFA Francs against the release of their father who was held captive at the Boyo mosque. The attackers demanded a high ransom on the grounds that the father of the two brothers owned 20 heads of oxen. On the night of December 8 to 9, 2021, while the villagers were sequestered in the Boyo mosque, groups of two to four assailants entered the homes of Muslims, forcing the doors, to loot property. Several civilians were beaten, injured and threatened with weapons. Muslim women and girls were raped in their homes or taken elsewhere and then raped without the presence of other civilians. Several cases of sexual violence were reported, five of which were confirmed by the investigation and seven others could not be confirmed.

MINUSCA investigations confirmed that the attackers intentionally targeted and killed 19 civilians, including 16 adults (men) and three minors (male), all belonging to the Muslim community. The majority of the victims were killed with knives (machetes). Six of the victims (including an underage boy) were beheaded. The assailants displayed the head and genitals of one of the beheaded men in front of the crowd of victims gathered at the mosque. Twelve victims (including a minor boy) had their throats cut. Three men had their throats cut in front of their house, then their bodies burned. Another was buried alive after being wounded with a machete. The twentieth victim, a 12-year-old girl, killed by a stray bullet, was buried by her family in a separate grave in the Muslim cemetery. The bodies of the other victims were buried in 3 mass graves: two bodies in the first grave, 14 bodies in the second grave and three bodies in the third. The investigations carried out made it possible to identify these mass graves. According to information collected by MINUSCA, an additional number of civilians were executed outside Boyo, without further details.

At least 12 people were injured, the majority of them with knives. Among the victims are two children, including a 4-year-old girl with head injuries and a 10-year-old boy with back injuries, all members of the Muslim community. A victim specifies that she was injured by three assailants with machetes brought to her head and her arm, then forced, under the threat of weapons and hand grenades brandished by the assailants, to walk to the central mosque. Losing blood, she fainted on the way. Two victims suffered amputations of their upper limbs.