AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Press TV
Tuesday

12 August 2014

9:48:14 PM
630757

Central African Republic names first Muslim prime minister

The Central African Republic (CAR) has named its first Muslim prime minister in a bid to end more than a year of conflict in the country.

Mahamat Kamoun, a former advisor to interim President Catherine Samba-Panza, was appointed by a presidential decree on Sunday, according to an announcement on the state radio.

Kamoun will lead a transitional government that will be tasked with implementing a truce agreed last month between the representatives of the mostly Muslim Seleka group and armed Christians.

The two sides signed the tentative ceasefire in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, pledging to end the hostilities.

Kamoun is now facing the demanding task of revitalizing a political transition aimed at ending the deadly violence in the Central African Republic.

The African country descended into chaos last December, when Christian armed groups launched coordinated attacks against the Seleka group that toppled the government in March 2013.

On December 5, France invaded its former colony after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution giving the African Union and France the go-ahead to send troops to the country.

In March 2014, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said almost all of more than 100,000 Muslims once residing in the capital, Bangui, had fled the violence perpetrated by the armed Christians.

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