After months of worsening violence, the United Nations voted Thursday to send French and African troops to the Central African Republic in an attempt to restore stability.
Brutal sectarian violence has engulfed the mostly Christian country since March, when the first Muslim leader assumed power after a coup.
Armed gangs of Muslim extremists joined by mercenaries from neighboring countries now control most of the country. Armed Christian forces are fighting back. Slaughter, rape and torture are widely reported.
A regional force has been in the country for months, but it's untrained, outmanned and outgunned. U.N. and Western officials say they fear a possible genocide.
Widespread Horrors
At a Catholic mission in Bossangoa in the country's north, more than 35,000 people are squatting in squalid conditions. Bundles of filthy rags are piled high in the seminary, and people have to pick carefully through the scant plastic sheeting and debris in a site far too small for the number of people. They have fled from the armed Muslim gangs known as Seleka, which means "alliance" in the local Sango language.
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