DAKAR (AlertNet) - U.N. peacekeepers have deployed to a town in the north east of Central African Republic (CAR) to deter attacks on Sudanese refugees from a rebel group, a U.N. spokesman has said.
The rebel group called the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) has accused refugees of killing some of their fighters and triggering insecurity in the region around the town of Sam Ouandja, almost 950km (590 miles) from the capital Bangui.
Two UFDR fighters were killed in an ambush by suspected highway robbers on the road between Sam Ouandja and Ouandja-Djale last week and the UFDR said a bandit who also died in the shoot-out was carrying a card identifying him as a refugee.
"They certainly raised the tone, it represented clear and present danger for the refugees and thatÂ?s why we took this preventive action to deploy a small number of soldiers that act as a deterrent to any possible reprisal," the spokesman of the U.N. Mission to the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) told AlertNet by telephone.
There are about 3,000 refugees from Darfur living in a camp at Sam Ouandja which is barely 80km (50 miles) from the Sudanese border.
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