In the Central African Republic, the Hired Guns Wear Out Their Welcome

Earlier this month, Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR) saw its streets filled with thousands of protesters. They were demonstrating against President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s plans to run for a third term. 

In a twist, however, the anger was also directed at Russian-led mercenaries from the Wagner Group: Its forces, demonstrators say, are illegally keeping the president in power. 

“We’re here to say no to a third term for Faustin Archange Touadéra,” protester Justin Winè, a member of the opposition, told the Independent. “But more than that, we want to protect our sovereignty, which Touadéra and Wagner have trampled upon.”  

“The Wagner have raped and killed (with impunity),” he added. “To put an end to their reign, Touadéra must go,” he said. 

The Wagner Group, now also called the Africa Corps, arrived in 2018 after years of conflict between the government and rebel groups in the country to help the president restore order. It was one of their first African operations. 

Since gaining independence from France in 1960, CAR, one of the poorest countries in the world, has experienced decades of violence and instability, including six coups. Then, in 2013, the country saw an explosion of fighting when predominantly Muslim Séléka rebels seized power, taking over Bangui, and ousted President François Bozizé from office. Christian Anti-balaka militias fought back, with mobs burning mosques and decapitating and dismembering Muslims.  

The violence went on sporadically, intensifying and spreading in 2018 after a period of relative calm as armed groups battled over areas rich with gold, diamonds, uranium, and other minerals. Thousands died in the fighting, with hundreds of thousands displaced by the conflict in the country of 5 million. 

Wagner forces prevented those groups from taking control of Bangui in 2021 – after six out of 14 armed groups vying for control backed out of a 2019 peace agreement.  

Since then, the Russian mercenaries have served as personal bodyguards for Touadéra, playing a key role in propping him up in the guise of helping him defeat rebel groups: The group not only wrote the text of the constitutional referendum in July 2023 that would extend his power indefinitely, but helped him win it with 95 percent of the vote due to a Russian disinformation campaign, according to an investigation by Le Monde. 

“The population was manipulated,” said Ephrem Yalike-Ngonzo, a journalist from CAR who was paid to help the Russian influence operation, in an interview with the newspaper.  

Now, some in CAR are getting increasingly fed up and losing their fear of speaking out, say analysts. 

“The recent wave of protests across the Central African Republic reflects growing public outrage at the continued presence and influence of Russian mercenaries, particularly the Wagner Group,” wrote the Robert Lansing Institute, a think tank. “Sparked by reports of arbitrary killings, sexual violence, and looting by Wagner fighters, these demonstrations highlight a broader crisis: The normalization of war crimes and impunity for violence against civilians.” 

The think tank noted how Wagner’s tactics in CAR closely mirror its operations in Mali, Sudan, and Libya. “These parallels reveal a deliberate pattern of coercive violence used to maintain influence, extract resources, and enforce political loyalty to Moscow’s geopolitical goals,” it added. 

Analysts say that although Wagner mercenaries were deployed to CAR ostensibly to train the army and restore and protect the peace, they were actually there to use the country as a springboard for other operations in Africa and to gain access to the country’s mineral wealth and commodities. 

For example, analysts say Wagner removed civilian communities around gold mines in Ndassima, Bria, and Koki, and then mined and profited through shell companies tied to Russian entities in CAR, such as Lobaye Invest and Midas Ressources. 

At the same time, United Nations officials, NGOs, analysts and journalists say they have committed human rights abuses, massacred civilians in rebel-held areas, carried out extra-judicial executions, used mass rape as a weapon of war, and forcibly displaced entire communities near mineral mines.  

Still, Wagner forces are planning for the long term. They advise the government, protect the capital and the president, and are currently constructing a base in CAR, intended to host 10,000 troops by 2030.  

They are also deepening their connection with the local population. People in CAR now learn Russian after the government made it the third official language after French and Sango, shop in Russian stores, and hail the Wagner Group for bringing much of the country back under government control and stability to Bangui.

“We had nothing. We were cut off from everything. Even the French had abandoned us,” a young soldier in the national army told the Economist. “But the Russians … they have strong fighters. They are the ones who helped us.”  

Still, the violence often happens in remote areas and isn’t reported by a national media cowed and co-opted by the government and Wagner officials. However, recently, two soldiers who disappeared after being detained in January by Wagner mercenaries set off demonstrations that garnered the notice of the wider public. 

As the Associated Press explained, residents in the Obo region have long feared the rebel groups that Russian mercenaries and the soldiers’ militias have fought. But they now feel similar outrage toward the mercenaries. 

“We are outraged to understand the Russians’ idea to train the Azande Ani Kpi Gbe militiamen was to control their movement and decapitate them,” said Robert Mboli, an Obo resident, referring to the disappeared soldiers’ militia. “We will demonstrate until they explain what they blame them for.” 

Meanwhile, the protests in Bangui go on, organized by the opposition in anticipation of elections in December. The opposition hopes to ride a growing wave of anti-government sentiment as well as complaints over daily-life issues: Protesters in April explained those with signs that read, “No water, no electricity.”  

Still, the opposition faces an uphill battle.  

Political and trade union organizations close to the government have been urging the public not to protest, while some social media accounts have spread false information, claiming that protest organizers had been arrested “red-handed distributing grenades to street children,” reported Agence France-Presse. 

“They want to silence the population,” said Sam, 39, an unaffiliated voter, at the protests, adding that local officials were reporting opponents to the government. “(But) I’d rather die here than wait at home for arrest.”