© Reuters / Goran Tomasevic
A military plane lands next to a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs), located at Bangui International Airport.
French peacekeeping troops were supposed to be protecting children at a center for internally displaced people at M'Poko Airport in CAR's capital Bangui, when the abuse reportedly took place between December 2013 and June 2014. It was at a time when the UN's mission at the country, MINUSCA, was in the process of being set up.
An internal investigation was ordered by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights (UNHCR), after reports on the ground of sexual abuse of children displaced by the conflict.
A member of staff from the high commissioner of human rights and a specialist from UNICEF interviewed the children between May and June last year. Some of the boys were able to give good descriptions of individual soldiers who abused them.
Officials in Geneva reportedly received the report in summer 2014.
Swedish national, Anders Kompass, a senior UN aid worker who has been involved in humanitarian work for over than 30 years, passed the document on to French prosecutors because of the UN's failure to take action, sources close to the case
told the Guardian.
The newspaper reports that after receiving the confidential UN report entitled Sexual Abuse on Children by International Armed Forces, French authorities traveled to Bangui to investigate the allegations.
A French judicial source said that the prosecutor's office had received the UN report in July 2014 and that a preliminary investigation had been launched.
"A preliminary investigation has been opened by the Paris prosecutor since July 21, 2014. The investigation is ongoing," he said, as quoted by Reuters.
Comment: Very interesting development in Ukraine. It is curious what the purpose of the attack is.