A UN peacekeeper from Pakistan was killed on Thursday in the Central African Republic during a flare-up of violence engulfing the capital of Bangui after months of relative calm.
Another soldier was severely wounded during the ambush on a joint Pakistani-Bangladeshi convoy and seven others suffered slight injuries, UN officials said.
It was the first peacekeeper death of the mission that deployed last month in the Central African Republic, taking over from African-led troops that were sent after a March 2013 coup plunged the country into bloodshed and chaos.
The head of the UN mission, Babacar Gaye, strongly condemned the ambush.
Bangui has been rocked by two days of violence pitting the city’s Muslim and Christian populations, leaving at least seven people dead and many dozens wounded, according to UN sources in Bangui.
The fresh violence was apparently ignited by a grenade attack in a Bangui street blamed on a Muslim assailant on a motorbike, followed by the murder of a taxi driver allegedly by Muslim gunmen who set fire to several houses.
The death of a UN peacekeeper in Central African Republic comes amid heightened concern over the UN mission in northern Mali where a wave of attacks have killed 31 peacekeepers since July last year.
News of the attack in the Central African Republic came after commanders briefed the UN Security Council on the growing security threats they face on the ground.
The UN’s 130,000 troops, police and civilian staff serving in missions worldwide are being drawn into more complex conflicts while being tasked with enforcing fragile peace deals.
After the latest attack on a UN base in northern Mali, the country’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told the Security Council that it should send a rapid-reaction force to help end the attacks on peacekeepers.
