France suspends two of its soldiers in Burkina Faso over child sex abuse
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Version 0 of 1. France has suspended two soldiers over allegations of child sex abuse, including of a five-year-old girl, in the west African country of Burkina Faso, the defence ministry said on Tuesday. “Two French soldiers on mission in Burkina Faso were suspected … of engaging in acts of a sexual nature with two children,” France’s defence ministry said in a statement. The suspensions follow an alleged sex abuse scandal involving French troops in Central African Republic (CAR), which caused outrage but came to light only after claims were leaked to the press. One of the alleged victims in Burkina Faso was a five-year-old girl whose father found a camera containing images of his daughter being sexually abused. “There was a soldier who filmed the scene with a camera while the second touched” the girl, a senior police officer in Burkina Faso said, adding that the parents had been friends with the alleged perpetrators. After discovering the camera the father went to the French embassy in the capital, Ouagadougou, which in turn alerted the local police, who have launched an investigation, the source said. Paris prosecutors also opened an investigation on Tuesday evening, a judicial source said. French military police, responsible for investigations into soldiers deployed on overseas operations, will arrive on Wednesday from Niger to investigate alongside their Burkina Faso counterparts, the source said. There are about 220 French soldiers stationed in Burkina Faso as part of a French anti-terrorism operation covering five regional countries spanning from Mali to Chad. There are about 900 French soldiers in CAR, where the initial quota of 2,000 was gradually reduced to make way for a UN peacekeeping mission. UN troops have also been accused of abusing children in CAR. A group of children in CAR alleged they were sexually abused at a centre for displaced people in the capital, Bangui, between December 2013 and June 2014, and 14 French soldiers are under investigation. Some of the abuse reportedly took place after the children in the conflict-ridden country begged the peacekeepers for food. The decision to go public and the almost immediate suspension of the two soldiers in the Burkina Faso case contrasts with the treatment of the scandal in CAR, which was revealed by the Guardian, intensifying damage to the image of the French army. |