BANGUI (Central African Republic), Dec 9: French troops on Monday began disarming fighters in the Central African Republic to try to restore security after a swell in sectarian violence that claimed hundreds of lives.

Bangui was relatively calm after days of fighting involving former Seleka rebels in which nearly 400 people were killed, although the stench of dead bodies still permeated some areas of the capital.

The armed men who spread terror on the streets of Bangui had all but disappeared by on Monday, and French military spokesman Gilles Jaron said some had already disarmed.

“Things are going fairly well,” Jaron said in Paris. “In some cases, the armed groups have withdrawn and gone back to their barracks, in others they have given up their arms,” he said.

France has deployed 1,600 soldiers to the notoriously unstable country, which has plunged into chaos since the Seleka rebels seized power in a March coup, with reports of widespread rape and public killings.

The troops have come up against little opposition since they began deploying last week.

On Monday morning, they briefly exchanged gunfire with armed men near the country’s international airport, but no casualties were reported.

“We have started to go out because the French are here,” said Arlette Papaye, a local tradeswoman.

“We had remained holed up in our homes and cellars. We are hungry. The French must chase out the Seleka.” The country’s interim president Michel Djotodia, a former Seleka rebel leader, on Monday urged his countrymen to cooperate with the French forces, who have come to reinforce a 2,500-strong African Union peacekeeping mission.

But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned that the disarmament process would not be “an easy task”.

“The problem is that many of the former Seleka (rebels) have traded their uniforms for civilian clothes... and it is difficult to identify individuals,” he said on France Inter radio.

Fabius said Djotodia had also appealed to his former fighters to give up arms, but while some remain loyal to him, many have gone rogue and imposed a reign of terror in the countryside.

“We have explained to everyone by radio and through other available media that they should bring back weapons,” Fabius said.

“If this does not yield sufficient results, force will be employed.” French President Francois Hollande, who sent troops into the west African country of Mali earlier this year to stop Islamists and Tuareg rebels from advancing on the capital Bamako, said Paris cannot turn a blind eye to the massacres perpetrated in the Central African Republic.But the military intervention has prompted criticism at home in France at a difficult time for the French economy.

FRANCE SAYS DEPLOYMENT COSTS MINIMAL: Fabius said the cost of the deployment was “minimal” as the French troops were drawn from bases in other African countries.

“If we did not intervene quickly it would have cost much more,” he said.

“If in place of a few hundred killed, there had been tens of thousands of deaths we would have had in any case to intervene in a country that was totally destroyed.”

France has also been anxious to avoid charges of meddling in its former African colony for political or economic reasons.

It has repeatedly emphasised that its troops are being dispatched to the CAR to reinforce the African Union peacekeeping mission and that it is ultimately Africa’s responsibility to tackle the various crises on the continent.

France has more than 5,300 troops stationed in a string of bases across western and central Africa, according to defence ministry figures.

The UN children’s agency Unicef said in Bangui that nearly 480,000 people — mostly women and children — had been displaced since the country of 4.6 million people plunged into chaos after the March coup.

Djotodia, the first Muslim leader of the CAR, disbanded the mainly Muslim Seleka when he took power, but was unable to prevent some of them from wreaking havoc.

Local Christians responded by forming vigilante groups and the government was never able to assert its authority over the Christian-majority country.

Reports have highlighted a series of horrors, with security forces and militia gangs raping with impunity, carrying out public killings and razing entire villages.

Djotodia has accused forces loyal to the exiled former president Francois Bozize, whom he had toppled, of being behind the vigilante groups.

London-based rights group Amnesty International has said that many involved in the latest violence are child fighters recruited by the former rebels. It said some were reportedly armed with axes and iron bars.—AFP