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Red Cross Worker Shot Dead in Central African Republic


An unidentified armed group in Central African Republic shot and killed a Red Cross worker in a town where more than 100 people have died in militia attacks in recent weeks, the Red Cross said on Monday.

Joachim Ali, a Red Cross volunteer in the diamond-mining town of Bangassou in the southeast of the country, was killed on Friday evening while on duty at the organization's compound, according to a spokesman.

He is the second Red Cross worker to be killed during the conflict, after a driver died in 2014. The Central African Red Cross Society is investigating Ali's death, a statement said.

Thousands have died and a fifth of Central Africans have fled their homes in the conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias.

Thirteen of the 14 armed groups along with representatives from the government signed a peace accord last Monday in Rome brokered by the Roman Catholic Sant' Egidio peace group.

About 50 people were killed in the town of Bria, northeast of the capital, in fighting between factions shortly afterwards.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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