Top members of the rebel
coalition loyal to the Central African Republic's former president have
fled the capital Bangui, witnesses said, as eight people were reported
killed in mob violence.
The convoy carrying
members of the mostly Muslim Seleka coalition was guarded by Chadian
peacekeepers, Human Rights Watch emergencies director Peter Bouckaert
said on Sunday.
"In the middle of the convoy, I saw several Seleka generals, including the head of military intelligence," Bouckaert said.
"It feels a bit like the endgame for Seleka in Bangui."
It was not immediately
clear why they were leaving the capital or where they were heading. Many
Seleka fighters, a large number of whom came from neighbouring Chad and
Sudan, have abandoned the capital in recent months following the
deployment of French troops.
Chadian peacekeepers
have been accused of supporting Seleka throughout the conflict, which
began when the Seleka rebels seized power in the majority Christian
country in March.
Mob killings
Also on Sunday, the Red Cross said eight people were killed and seven others injured by a mob in Bangui.
"We even had one woman
whose throat was slit," Antoine Mbao Bogo, president of the country's
Red Cross, told Reuters news agency.
The deaths come as US
Secretary of State John Kerry warned that Washington was prepared to
impose sanctions against those responsible for sectarian violence in the
country.
"The United States is
prepared to consider targeted sanctions against those who further
destabilise the situation, or pursue their own selfish ends by abetting
or encouraging the violence," Kerry said in a statement.
The United Nations
estimates that more than 2,000 people have been killed since March in
tit-for-tat bloodshed that a French intervention force and thousands of
African peacekeepers have failed to stop.
Christian self-defence groups, known as "anti-balaka", or anti-machete, have taken up arms against the rebels.
Almost one million people, or a quarter of the population, have been displaced by fighting.
In a statement issued on
Sunday, Amnesty International warned that both Christian and Muslim
civilians in parts of northwest CAR were "in imminent danger of attack"
because of a heavy militia presence and the absence of peacekeepers.
"More deaths are very
likely but this could be prevented by even a small presence of
international peacekeepers," Amnesty senior crisis adviser Donatella
Rovera said.
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