The gold-rich territory of the Central African Republic near the Sudanese border turned into a site of carnage Tuesday when Russian paramilitary forces launched a coordinated, lethal assault on the “Baba” mine.
The offensive left a trail of death and destruction among a multinational workforce of Sudanese, Chadian, and South Sudanese miners who were targeted in the raid.
Friction in the region had been mounting for weeks after Russian units imposed a series of draconian decrees that strictly prohibited hunting, the possession of weapons, or the use of motorcycles within the mining zone.
The spark for the violence reportedly occurred when a miner captured a gazelle that was found to be wearing a sophisticated surveillance camera used by the paramilitary forces for monitoring the area.
In a swift and overwhelming response, Russian troops deployed a heavy barrage of fire from both combat vehicles and helicopters, sending terrified survivors scrambling for safety across international borders.
Local witnesses reported a desperate humanitarian situation as thirty wounded individuals were successfully evacuated to the town of Kafia Kingi in South Darfur to receive emergency medical care.
The scale of the crisis extended further south as other victims suffering from critical injuries were transported to the city of Bor to seek life-saving assistance within South Sudanese territory.
By Wednesday morning, the grim reality of the massacre remained visible at the site, where unburied bodies lay abandoned while the local community struggled to process the magnitude of the loss.
This bloody confrontation underscores the volatile and often deadly security vacuum in the region, where foreign forces exert aggressive control over lucrative mineral resources at the expense of local lives.
