CAR Muslims Risk Ethnic Cleansing: What if Thousands of Christians were forced out of a Muslim Count

http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/cleansing-thousands-christians.html

CAR Muslims Risk Ethnic Cleansing: What if Thousands of Christians were forced out of a Muslim Country?
By Juan Cole | Feb. 15, 2014

The Central African Republic has a population of 4.5 million, about 15 percent of them Muslim, or about 670,000 people. Those Muslims are now, according to Amnesty International, in serious danger of being ethnically cleansed.

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In a scene out of World War II, a long convoy of Muslims tried on Friday to flee the capital Bangui, meeting with lines of taunting Christians who shouted “We’re going to kill you all.” But to get out of the capital they had to try to go through dangerous Christian neighborhoods, and UN peacekeepers decided to turn them back to a mosque where they could shelter instead.

The tens of thousands of Muslims who have already fled are in a situation of ethnic cleansing according to the UN. (Since there are about 670,000 Muslims in the country, if 67,000 fled abroad, that would be 10 percent).

Christian militias in Bangui say they were originally formed and took up arms to fight off the disproportionately Muslim Seleka (Coalition) rebels who joined in attempts to dislodge the now-overthrown leader of the country Francois Bozizé. The militias have, however, gone well beyond self-defense to active attacks on non-combatant Muslim populations.