Agencies-Gaza post
Security Council extends arms embargo on Africa for one year
The UN Security Council on Friday approved a 12-month extension of the arms embargo on the Central African Republic, while its member states expressed concern about the situation “which resumes posing a threat to international peace and regional security” in the country.
The Council approved the extension of the embargo by a majority of 10 votes and five abstentions, including China — the only State to abstain during the previous extension Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, and Russia.
Fighting still in Central Africa, one of the world’s poorest nations. Its army recently repelled a rebel offensive in the east, while UNIFIL declared that it had recovered a town in the country’s north.
Government forces, supported by Rwandan soldiers and hundreds of Russian paramilitary forces, have grown since the end of December 2020 in recovering a large part of the country’s two-thirds, which they have held for years.
The arms prohibition was imposed in 2013 after a coalition of armed groups overthrew President François Bozizé’s regime and plunged the country into civil war.
It has been mitigated several times by pressure from the Central African Republic authorities, which consider that this measure weakens them in the face of rebels who obtain arms from the black market.
