AFP/Paris

President Francois Hollande has vowed to “show no mercy” if French peacekeepers in Central African Republic were found guilty of raping hungry children in exchange for food.
According to a French judicial source, several children – the youngest just nine – allege that 14 French soldiers dispatched to the impoverished nation to restore order after a 2013 coup were involved in sexually abusing some of them in exchange for food.
Of those soldiers, “very few” have actually been identified, and those that have remain to be questioned, added the source, who wished to remain anonymous.
“If some soldiers have behaved badly, I will show no mercy,” Hollande told reporters.
The defence ministry denied attempting to cover up a potentially devastating scandal following revelations it had been made aware of the allegations in July last year when it received a leaked report compiled by UN officials stationed in the chaotic African country.
The abuse reportedly took place at a centre for displaced people near the airport of the Central African capital Bangui between December 2013 – when the French operation began – and June 2014.
The defence ministry said it immediately launched a probe into the case, sending police investigators to the former French colony on August 1 after receiving the news, but the damning allegations nevertheless only emerged this week when The Guardian newspaper broke the story.
“There is no desire to hide anything,” Pierre Bayle, a defence ministry spokesman, told reporters yesterday.
“We are not hiding the facts, we are trying to verify the facts,” he added, while urging “great caution” over accusations that have yet to be proven.
According to The Guardian, the UN employee accused of the leak, Swedish national Anders Kompass, turned the report over to French authorities because his bosses had failed to take action.
UN spokesman Farhan Haq confirmed that UN rights investigators had conducted a probe last year following “serious allegations” of child abuse and sexual exploitation by French troops.
But unnamed UN officials said Kompass leaked the confidential document to the French even before it was shown to officials in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, suggesting that they were not aware of the report’s findings when it was leaked.
Central African prosecutors meanwhile said they had not been made aware of an investigation into alleged child abuse and had launched a probe after this week’s revelations.