Wagner successor's terror campaign in the Central African Republic

A few minutes after noon on January 17, 2023, Privat Damabakizi, 35, and his wife were working in their field in a small village in the Central African Republic near the border with Cameroon when his brother Alvin called him.

Seven armed men in camouflage uniforms arrived at Damabakizi's home in Bouar, a town located about seven kilometers from the field.

The men were white, wearing balaclavas, Alvin recalled in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE). They spoke poor French, one of the country's two official languages. They were Russian, a common sight in the area. They were looking for Damabakizi.

"I was worried. I called him and asked him what he had done to bring the Russians here," Alvin recalls. "These people are bad people."

Damabakizi told Alvin not to worry and told him he would be home right away. Alvin advised him to go to the police instead.

When Damabakizi arrived shortly after, the Russians grabbed him and threw him into one of their trucks, hitting him with rifle butts and stabbing him with bayonets. His wife, Neli, cried as they drove away with Damabakizi.

The next day, after making a panicked call to local authorities, Alvin said prosecutors told him that Damabakizi was accused of buying items – likely radios – that were stolen from a nearby military base used by Russian mercenaries.

Alvin and Neli never saw Damabakizi again. They believe he was tortured before being killed. They don't know where his body is.

Rich in natural resources, ravaged by ethnic conflict, plagued by extreme poverty and widespread corruption, the Central African Republic has long served as a case study of a failed state.

Since 2018, Russian mercenaries have been providing security for the president and government officials in the Central African Republic. They also train government forces.

It has also become a laboratory for a dangerous political experiment: the takeover of the state through private companies. In this case, companies that combine war operations and security with lucrative commercial interests, mainly the extraction of gold, diamonds and timber.

The company is, or was, the Wagner Group. Created with the help of a politically connected chef from St. Petersburg, Wagner has become one of Russia's most powerful fighting forces, spearheading military operations in Syria, Libya, and most notably, Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin also built parallel business networks that later expanded into diverse activities, such as catering for school meals in Russia or exporting and importing wooden materials in Africa.

Wagner officially ceases to exist after Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in August 2023, which most experts believe was a targeted assassination, likely orchestrated from the highest levels of the Kremlin. The company's armed units have largely been disbanded, integrated into the Ministry of Defense and other Russian agencies.

However, Prigozhin's lucrative businesses largely remain – particularly in the Central African Republic, where they generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from diamond and gold mining, logging, arms trafficking and other sources.

Unstable security

Since 2018, Wagner Group fighters have acted as the personal security service of the country's president, Faustin-Archange Touadero, while also supporting his government.

After winning the 2015 presidential election, Touadéra was re-elected in December 2020, although the vote threatened a violent challenge from Touadéra's rival, Francis Bozize, who was barred from running for reasons that some observers considered dubious.

The renamed Wagner Group units in the Central African Republic, on the other hand, have become a paramilitary police force, operating outside the law, committing war crimes and other crimes with impunity.

"In the Central African Republic, Wagner has perfected a plan to take over the state, supporting a criminalized state taken over by the Central African Republic president and his inner circle, acquiring military power, securing access to and plundering precious minerals, and subjecting the population to terror," according to a 2023 report by The Sentry, a US-based non-governmental research organization co-founded by actor George Clooney.

People who are victims of Russian mercenaries say they can testify to the fear that Russian units have instilled in parts of the population.

"Imagine how [little] power you have when people come with guns and don't speak your language," said another man, who asked to be identified only as Adam, in an interview in September. "Should I just wait until they come back again? Who knows what will happen if they come back?"

Adam, a trader in a village two hours southwest of Bangui, said his shop was looted and ransacked by "white men with tattoos and masks on their faces" who spoke Russian.

"Outside the capital... many people are suffering, and no one seems to know" about it, he told RFE/RL's English-language editorial staff.

"It's my case, but also the case of many other people in different places and regions."

'Unbridled brutality'

When Wagner mercenaries first arrived in the Central African Republic in 2018, they came ostensibly on a mission to train and instruct, and to provide security services to the Touadéra government.

Wagner founded a company called "Sewa Security Services" which became the local entity responsible for overseeing Russian fighters in the country. A larger group of former Wagner fighters were integrated into the Ministry of Defense under the name "Afrika Korps".

It is estimated that up to 2.300 fighters could have been deployed at the peak of Wagner's presence. Most recently, in September, the former supreme commander of Wagner's assault units was appointed as Tuareg's chief security advisor.

Many people also credited Russian forces with reducing years of conflict fueled by religious and ethnic differences and a struggle for control of the country's wealth.

However, in the years that followed, activists, journalists and experts – even the United Nations – have amassed a mountain of evidence pointing to crimes – murders, torture, executions, kidnappings, rapes, thefts – that are credibly linked to Wagner forces and their successors.

Between 2018 and 2024, Russian troops were involved in more than 100 armed conflicts and committed more than 362 violent incidents against civilians, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, a US-based non-governmental organization that tracks violent events around the world. The violence resulted in at least 786 deaths.

In 2021, a coalition of rebel groups launched a failed coup attempt against Touadéra following disputed presidential elections. Wagner troops helped government forces repel the attack.

Afterwards, the Russian ambassador to the country, Vladimir Titorenko, stated that "Russian soldiers will remain until the [opposition] rebels and bandit armed groups are completely destroyed."

In a 2022 report, Human Rights Watch cited more than three dozen people who were victims of various crimes between February 2019 and November 2021. All said the crimes were committed by white men who spoke Russian, a language that witnesses recognized.

A UN working group investigating the use of mercenaries in the Central African Republic and elsewhere reports that witnesses described Russian officers committing rape and sexual violence against women, men and young girls.

Many survivors were hesitant to report to authorities for fear of reprisals, the group found.

Reports of torture are common: one common method, a UN monitoring group found, involves connecting someone's genitals to electrical cables and then electrocuting them.

"The contribution of Russian bilateral forces to improving the security situation contrasts with the condemnation of the human rights violations they commit," said UN official Jao Agbetse in a separate report from August 2022. Witness accounts point to "unbridled brutality" by Russian forces.

"Speaking to you, I also tell myself that they will react and I am afraid. Because to say I am not afraid is not fair," Alvin said in an interview with RFE/RL's English-language editorial office in November last year. "I don't know what could happen to me tomorrow or the day after tomorrow."

On the morning of August 9, 2024, Adam was working in his small food and merchandise shop in Mbaiki, about a two-hour drive southwest of Bangui, the capital, when he noticed two pick-up jeeps and several motorbikes entering the town.

A group of heavily armed men began shouting orders at local men and boys, demanding identification.

Some appeared to be members of the Armed Forces of the Central African Republic, known by the acronym FACA. They beat Adam and the other men with weapons, demanding that they tell them where they had hidden their weapons, if they had any.

After them, Adam said, came "white men with tattoos and masks on their faces" who spoke Russian.

The Russians raided his store and filled their vehicles with stolen goods, he said: "They took shoes, tents, stoves, rice, cooking oil, even veterinary medicine. They emptied my store."

The convoy then went to another village, where they continued looting shops, demanding identification from local men. Adam said his cousin, who tried to escape, was shot and thrown into a truck with a group of other men.

The Russians drove the truck about two kilometers, Adam said, and then cut his cousin's throat.

"They left him by the main road, about a 10-minute walk into the woods, then wrapped a rope around his stomach and hung him from a nearby tree," he said. Hours later, Adam and others found his body in the tree, he said. They cut up his body and then buried it.

'Who should I complain to?'

Igor Ngaise said that in December 2020, Russian soldiers killed his aunt Albertina, likely as a bystander in a clash with rebel fighters.

On January 25, 2021, he said, he was lying in his small house in Sibut, a village north of Bangui, when he suddenly heard gunfire outside. He waited until the gunfire stopped, then peered out of his room and saw a Russian soldier walking down the hallway. Igor quickly ran out of the house, then listened as the soldier fired a rifle into each room, then fired bullets into the main living room.

Ngaise said his 25-year-old younger sister remained hidden inside the house, scared but unharmed.

After the incident, which was reported by local media, Ngaise sought help from the local police commissioner, he said. They were confronted by what appeared to be a senior Russian officer, who then offered him 5.000 Central African francs (about eight dollars), which appeared to be the change in his pocket. Outraged, Ngaise refused.

"If I have to complain, who should I complain to?" he told RFE/RL. "I don't know exactly what's going on in this country."

"The number of victims of Wagner's human rights crimes continues to grow," Jelena Aparac, who previously headed the UN's working group on mercenaries, told RFE/RL in a text message. "[Unfortunately], there are no coordinated investigations and [no] effective accountability."

And Russian soldiers have become notorious for the brutal tactics they use to intimidate people – even those they themselves have trained.

As with Jose Befio, who had previously been recruited through government forces and trained with the help of Wagner soldiers to command a local unit of the national militia known as the Anti-balaka.

Befio, who UN monitors said was involved in previous violent crimes, later withdrew his support for the government and its Russian allies. He spoke out against some of the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in the region, his uncle, Bachir Itoumandji, and two of his wives told RFE/RL's English-language service.

On July 23, 2024, Befio was sleeping in his house before dawn in the central town of Bouca when Russian soldiers stormed in and kidnapped him and his close associate.

Itoumandji said he and other relatives heard gunfire and explosions early in the morning. When everything quieted down, he drove to a local cotton processing facility, where the shooting had taken place.

When he found the bodies of Befi and his associate, Itoumandji said the Russians had cut off their heads and replaced them, placing Befi's head in the hands of his associate, and vice versa.

Photos of the bodies spread across the country, and a UN monitoring mission also recorded the incident.

Witnesses who had already been there told Itoumandji that Russian soldiers were responsible.

"We brought him inside and put his head in place, as well as his friend's head," he said. "We washed the bodies before we buried them."

They also kidnapped three of Befi's younger children and held them for several days, Itoumandji said. When they were returned to their family, all three had their teeth extracted.

Befi's execution was part of a pattern of crimes and public executions committed by Russian soldiers and FACA, said Charles Bossel, a country expert at the International Crisis Group, a think tank based in Belgium.

"Terror is being used as a weapon because Wagner and FACA may not have enough forces to be present everywhere on the ground," Buesel told RFE/RL's English service.

"They use fear, which can be an effective way to get people to give information, and sell information" to the Russians.

Befi's execution, and the photos that circulated, probably also served as a public warning, he said.

"It could be a message to other warlords and a way to calm the country," Bouessel said. "It's possible that this was the message: If you break your promises to Wagner, this is what awaits you."

Despite significant evidence gathered by human rights activists as well as UN experts, Russian officials in Moscow and Bangui have repeatedly denied accusations that Russians have committed crimes in the country.

"Russian military advisers could not and did not participate in the killings or looting. This is another lie," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to the 2021 UN report.

Radio Free Europe's English-language editorial staff sought comment from the Central African Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the reports of Russian crimes, but did not receive a response.

A spokesman for the president's office also declined to answer questions, saying only that "the cooperation with Russia is extraordinary and this [fact] disturbs Westerners who want to demonize the Central African Republic."

Despite the fear and intimidation they have caused – with the government's blessing, experts say – there is no indication that the Russian security presence will disappear anytime soon.

If anything, Tuadera and his administration have decided to deepen ties. Last month, Tuadera traveled to Moscow, where he was welcomed with a red carpet and a small honor guard parade just outside the Kremlin walls.

A month earlier, however, a new monument appeared in the capital of the Central African Republic - a pair of statues dedicated to the late Prigozhin, and Dmitry Utkin, a former soldier who was in charge of Wagner's first command team, and who also died in a plane crash in 2023.