Return to Boda
Return to Boda investigates the complex factors that led to inter-religious violence during 2014 in the town of Boda, Central African Republic. It offers a chronicle representative of the current broader crisis in the country triggered by conflicts over mineral resources, agricultural land and livestock, an enfeebled security apparatus and impunity for those who have committed human rights violations.
I originally traveled to Boda in December, 2013. The town had remained comparatively untouched by the massacres and brutality much of the country suffered during the rise of the majority muslim Seleka rebel movement the previous year. As street battles erupted on the 5th of 2013 in the capital Bangui between Anti-balaka, originally an armed defence group of non-muslims and the Seleka, I became blocked in Boda due the high risks of traveling on roads back to the capital.
Despite the outbreaks of fighting in the rest of CAR, there was still a semblance of normality in Boda, although talking to townsfolk each day the tension and anxiety building was palpable; a veiled threat between a Christian woman selling bananas in the market and a Muslim trader, rumours of young men arming themselves and the evident lack of dialogue between the priests from the well established Catholic mission and the Imam from the Central Mosque. I was flown out of Boda to the capital where I continued to document the crisis in the country for the following weeks.
With the hurried exit of the Seleka from Boda in January 2014, there was an opportunity for inter-faith harmony to reestablish itself. Instead, the seeds of suspicion and distrust which had been planted during the reign of the Seleka continued to grow. The muslim community, fearing persecution due to their shared religion of Islam with a majority of the rebels began arming themselves.
On the 29th of January houses were torched, Christians and Muslims blaming each other for instigating the violence and massacres that followed. A community where families of different religious faiths whom had once inter-married and schooled their children together were now battling each other with machetes and guns. Horrific abuses were committed on both sides, with Muslims and Christians living in mutual fear in separate enclaves.
In Boda the victims who suffered most were the vulnerable. Access to health services at the local hospital became too dangerous until it ceased to operate. Schools shut down. Nonprofit The Alliance for International Medical Action began it’s program in Boda in June of 2014 as a response to the urgent need for healthcare. It rebuilt functionality at the hospital and created a separate medical centre in the Muslim enclave to meet the needs of the community.
At the end of 2014 a fragile peace is in place with the transitory intervention of French Forces and a now established United Nations peace keeping mission.
Returning to Boda in December 2014, I spent 5 days attempting to understand how a community had so viciously turned on itself. Many Christians were sheltered in tents at the Catholic Mission, reportedly over one thousand more hidden kilometres away in the scrub. Pastoralists, vulnerable to surprise attacks by Anti-balaka in the bush had sought sanctuary amongst the community in the Muslim enclave.
The majority of civilians interviewed perceived their own religious group as the victims and the ‘other’ as the perpetrators and instigators of violence. Atrocities had been committed by sides, often revenge attacks from civilians who had lost a mother, sibling or child. Everybody wants things to go back to as they were before but digging deeper, not many people seemed ready to reconcile; a wound only beginning to heal which could be reinfected if the surface is barely scratched.
It is clear that the origins of the conflict in Boda and the broader crisis in Central African Republic is not just about religion. Issues such as access to mineral resources, agricultural land and livestock, areas predominantly dominated by the Muslim community had created resentments within the Christian population. A non-existent state security apparatus also meant that human rights abuses were committed with impunity during the Seleka rule and the rise of the the Anti-balaka. It is troubling today that this continues, perpetrators safe in the knowledge they will not be held accountable for violent crimes despite the presence of a multitude of peace-keeping forces within the country.