The sign indicating the name of the city Zemio, in Zemio, Central African Republic, September 30, 2019. FLORENT VERGNES/AFP
Two employees of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have been arrested in the Central African Republic, the charity said on Tuesday, March 10, a day after authorities announced the detention of a French aid worker. The two workers – one French and the other a Centrafrican – were detained in the southern town of Zemio last week and then transferred to the capital Bangui "where they are still in police custody," MSF said in a statement.
The announcement comes two days before France's top diplomat Jean-Noël Barrot carries out the first visit to Bangui by a French foreign minister for seven years. Barrot is to meet President Faustin Archange Touadera on Thursday.
The Central African defense ministry late Monday said the French MSF aid worker was suspected of "activities aimed at destabilizing the security situation" in the region. The ministry accused the suspect of having "contacts with criminal elements" and working towards "subversive agitation among the local population of the Azande ethnic group" to "turn them against the legally elected authorities" in the country. It alleged that he had illegally crossed into the Central African Republic from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
