Nairobi — June 25 Explosion Killed, Injured College students; Inquiry Wished
Central African Republic authorities arrested activists keeping a memorial event for students who died in a highschool explosion, Human Rights Survey acknowledged on the present time.
On June 27, 2025, civil society activists organized a vigil in memory of the students who died in the explosion on June 25 at Barthelemy Boganda High College in Bangui, the capital, where they have been taking year-live checks. The loss of life toll used to be reported in the media to be 29, with on the least 250 others injured. The authorities arrested seven folk on the memorial event, in conjunction with three of the organizers, even although all have since been launched.
“Students should not fear death or injury when they are attending school and have a right to full public accountability,” acknowledged Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Survey. “The government should follow through on its obligation to conduct transparent and effective investigations and not target those calling for accountability.”
The authorities issued an announcement on July 1 asserting that 20 students died and 65 others have been hospitalized. The authorities has promised an investigation into the trigger of the explosion.
The explosion on the college, which took place when vitality used to be being restored to an electrical transformer on the premises, caused a stampede of 5,000 students who have been taking checks, in step with witnesses and media reviews. One student told Human Rights Survey that it took a truly very lengthy time for ambulances to shut, and that bystanders needed to switch the injured to hospitals by motorcycle taxis.
“My daughter had jumped out of a second story window,” the father of a 21-year-mature victim, who used to be no longer on the scene, told Human Rights Survey. “Her friends and classmates waited for over an hour for an ambulance and decided to take her on a motorcycle, but she died on the way to the hospital. This was her baccalaureate exam, and she was excited for her future. We buried her yesterday and we are still in shock.”
Journalists who covered the incident told Human Rights Survey that the decision of dumb is 29 and that the decision of injured, in conjunction with these severely injured, is additionally increased than the legitimate number. The authorities must make an efficient, transparent, and public investigation into both the trigger and the extent of the wreck straight, Human Rights Survey acknowledged.
The president supplied three days of nationwide mourning, which took location from June 27 to 29. Civil society activists from an umbrella group, the Civil Society Working Neighborhood (Groupe de Travail de la Société Civile, GTSC), organized a vigil on June 27 to commemorate the victims, demand safer schools, and demand an investigation.
One amongst the activists told Human Rights Survey the organizers tried to defend the memorial ceremony on the college but have been denied receive staunch of entry to by the Education Ministry attributable to investigations have been underway. Thought this motive, they chose a definite location, but the security minister acknowledged the vigil used to be no longer licensed, citing a 2022 ban on protests in public spaces.
The organizers alongside with the students and their households began to defend the vigil anyway, but police broke it up and arrested seven folk in conjunction with the three organizers, Gervais Lakosso, Fernand Mandé Djapou, and Paul Crescent Beninga, the activists acknowledged.
Footage showing police beating vigil people, viewed by Human Rights Survey, circulated on social media. Human Rights Survey used to be additionally sent photos from undoubtedly one of many vigil organizers showing wounds from when he used to be thrown in a police truck.
“We were trying to light candles and put down flowers in memory of those we lost,” Beninga acknowledged. “Where is the security risk in that? We were trying to mourn our young people that were studying for their future and the police came, beat, and arrested us and took us away.”
At some level of their interrogation, three civil society activists have been informally accused by the police of “association with criminals” and of getting ties to the Republican Bloc for the Protection of the Constitution (Bloc Républicain pour la Défense de la Constitution, BRDC), a coalition of opposition parties. Folks shut to the authorities in general disparage the coalition and accuse it of supporting armed groups.
“We were treated like criminals and traitors,” Mandé Djapou acknowledged.
The Interior Safety Ministry posted its rejection of the activists’ request to defend the memorial event on its Facebook page, alongside with photos of the three activists in handcuffs. The post says that the “detained,” whereas free, will “be subject to close police surveillance.”
Authorities took Lakosso and Mandé Djapou to a cell on the National Safety Unit and Beninga to a cell on the Central Place of work for the Repression of Banditry (Place of work Central de Répression du Banditisme, OCRB), a police unit in Bangui infamous for abuses, where they spent the night. Sending an activist detained for organizing a memorial for dumb students to a facility urge by a unit known for torture, executions, and shooting suspects on earn out about can excellent be designed to intimidate and ship a threatening message to activists.
Be half of free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get doubtlessly the most sleek in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The three activists, apart from to the four others arrested with them, have been launched after President Faustin-Archange Touadéra intervened, in step with the activists and the ministry’s Facebook page.
Since 2022, Central African authorities have cracked down on civil society, media, and opposition political parties. The police have refrained from opposition political protests and authorities officials have made counterfeit accusations that civil society activists are collaborating with armed groups.
Repression increased before native and nationwide elections in 2023, and a referendum in 2023 led to a recent constitution that removed duration of closing dates and permits Touadéra to urge for a third duration of time, which had no longer been permitted beneath the 2016 constitution.
“When tragedies like this occur, civil society should be able to commemorate, call for accountability, and support people in their grief,” Mudge acknowledged. “The government’s crackdown on this memorial event shows how much it relies on repression and assumes the worst from civil society.”
