Teenagers in the Central African Republic say they were kidnapped and raped by Putin’s Wagner group

EBAM, Cameroon – Ella* and Béatrice* – both 16 – returned from visiting a friend earlier this year only to discover their homes were on fire.

Friends and neighbours, who had lost almost everything, were sobbing uncontrollably as their entire compound in the village of Agbado, Central African Republic, was on fire.

It was January 16, the day of the infamous massacre – first reported by The Daily Beast – when Putin’s private army massacred more than 70 people in eastern Central African Republic, setting homes on fire and leaving hundreds homeless near a gold mine outside Agbado. .

On the sandy ground outside the compound, the girls said they saw two bodies riddled with bullets, and they couldn’t believe what they saw, never imagining that their ordeal would get worse so soon.

Once their homes were burned down, they fled to a refugee camp where they said they were held against their will and repeatedly raped by white men believed to be soldiers hired by Wagner’s group.

The infamous Wagner Group is run by one of President Putin’s closest confidants, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who sends mercenaries around the world on secret missions the Kremlin wants to keep off the books. The private army served extensively in Syria, several African countries, and now in Ukraine, where it was accused of war crimes.

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2016 in Vladivostok, Russia.

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

The mercenaries had been in the Central African Republic for four years and were accused of carrying out a range of barbaric acts including the Agbado assaults, resulting in Ella and Beatrice immediately fleeing to a makeshift camp for internally displaced people in nearby Bria, a provincial capital.

Instead of taking refuge, they said they found more torment at the hands of European soldiers who said they had kidnapped them, taken them to another location, and subjected them to repeated sexual assaults.

“For us, it was like we were living in hell,” said Beatrice. “We kept begging them for mercy but they wouldn’t listen. They made us bleed.”

In mid-February, the girls say that a number of Russian mercenaries appeared in the camp in Brea and separated the young girls from the rest of the refugees. It was then alleged that they picked dozens of teenage girls, including Ella and Beatrice, ordered them into their trucks and drove them to a camp in Bossangoa where they were held for weeks and raped.

“From the first day we arrived [at Bossangoa]’The white soldiers, many of them, began to harass us,’ said Ella. ‘If you ask them to stop, they will beat you mercilessly and threaten to send you into the bush until the rebels rape you.’

Throughout their stay in Bossangoa, the Russians brought in other young women who had been captured from various locations in the town, according to Beatrice who said the mercenaries “had no regard for women” in the area.

We could hear the girls screaming.

“The [local] “The women were treated worse than those who came from afar,” said Beatrice. Not only were they sexually assaulted, but they were regularly beaten for no reason. It was as if the women in the city had done something wrong.”

In the past 18 months, the city has witnessed a large number of Russian atrocities. last year, CNN reported That a video obtained from a United Nations drone and geolocated by the network showed houses torched near the city on February 23, with the United Nations then declaring that “bilateral forces” — referring to the Russian paramilitary forces and the African Republic Army. Central – “Houses were burned in a village located 13 kilometers from Bossangoa.” Months later, it was 12 civilians He was reportedly killed In the city by Wagner mercenaries after they were arrested while riding their motorbikes. The victims were mostly artisanal miners and merchants, who are often the target of Russian paramilitaries with a keen interest in gold deposits in the Central African Republic.

In mid-March, after spending more than three weeks in Bossangoa, Ella and Beatrice, along with four other girls, were taken to the town of Bouar, near the Cameroon border, where they said they were further raped and abused by another group. Russian mercenaries in what constitutes sex trafficking.

“They kept us there for weeks and handed us over to their slaves,” Ella said. “If any girl said she was pregnant, they would just call the doctor for an abortion. I saw them do it with three girls.”

More than a dozen Russians were involved in these abusive acts, according to Ella who said the girls were often taken to an empty room and a few paramilitaries were sometimes seen as their colleagues took turns raping the girls.

“We could hear the girls screaming while they were being raped,” she said.

In the past few years, Russia has expanded its influence in the Central African Republic, a country that has been mired in coups and conflicts over the past two decades. President Faustin-Archange Touadera, whose government controls only the capital Bangui – the rest of the country is in rebel hands – turned to the Kremlin in 2017 to help secure arms and paramilitary forces after UN peacekeepers were unable to establish state authority. Mercenaries from the Wagner Group appeared soon after, committed abuses that increasingly led to violence in the provinces and had a say in the country’s political and economic affairs.

At the end of January, Wagner began withdrawing some of its personnel – estimated at between 1,200 and 2,000 – from the Central African Republic to Eastern Europe to support Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Some of its bases were closed, and mercenaries who remained in the country were constantly moved. When those in Bouar redeployed in April, Ella and Beatrice, along with the other girls, were kicked out of the base by their surrogates. The girls fled to Ngaoundere in the Adamawa Central Region of Cameroon, where thousands of Central African Republic refugees have settled, before later moving to the city of Ibam, not far from the commercial city of Mamfi, in southwestern Cameroon, where a CAR national is taking in dozens of refugees. from the Central African Republic. refugees from his country and help them find menial jobs.

“It’s just my way of helping my countrymen do something meaningful,” said Laurent Nkem, who has lived in Cameroon for nearly two decades and owns a number of farms in the southwest of the country. “I will support the girls in every possible way and help them go back to school.”

Ella and Béatrice arrived in southwestern Cameroon in early May with the help of a commercial transport operator who told them they could find opportunities in the area. Since their arrival, they have been working part-time on cassava and potato farms owned by Nkeme’s friends and earning between $3 and $5 a day for their efforts.

More than 300,000 citizens of the Central African Republic, who have endured decades of extreme hardship, Living in Cameroon as refugees. The vast majority live in the eastern and central parts of the country, but a few are scattered around western Cameroon, where fighting between government forces and English-speaking separatists has caused a security crisis and forced tens of thousands to flee to Nigeria.

“There was a time when armed men invaded the cassava plantation but we were lucky to escape,” said Beatrice. “People here say this happens a lot.”

Teenage girls from the Central African Republic do not feel completely safe in southwest Cameroon, but with conflicts and hardships all around them, they have almost no alternatives. Home is the place they would like to return to, but the thought of facing the Russians again continues to intimidate them.

“We would love to see our family and friends again,” said Beatrice. “But I am afraid that we will meet these white soldiers again and they will do us harm.”

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

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