French President Francois Hollande said today that it will be "ruthless" if guilt is confirmed 14 accused French soldiers of rape in 2014 dozens of children in exchange for food, in Central African Republic .
"If the Justice and military command confirmed the facts, there will be sanctions to be proportional to the facts have been found. If the facts are serious, the penalties will be severe, "he said in the city of Brest, at a time when the Army is facing a potentially devastating scandal.
statements Hollande came a day after the French Ministry of Justice reported that substance, from July 31, 2014, a preliminary investigation into the facts, then driven to the Ministry of Defence transferred to the Paris Public Prosecutor a working document UN accumulating several complaints.
the initial UN investigation was kept secret until a report published yesterday by the newspaper the Guardian forced officials to publicly acknowledge the case.
Prior to the statements of Hollande, and after the scandal occupied the French media, the government refused to hide or cover up the facts.
"Since we received the first information, the Ministry of Defence and myself we launched an investigation and communicate to Justice", Hollande said .
spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Pierre Bayle, called for "great caution" to the accusations and stressed that "there is no intention to hide anything."
last year, the Defense Ministry received a report developed by members of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN in the Central African Republic argues that ten children claim to have been violated in exchange for food.
the report documents facts -of suffered by children between 9 and 13 years M'Poko airport in Bangui, the Central African capital between December 2013 and June 2014 under the sangaris operation, said yesterday the Ministry.
Today it became known that the soldiers involved are 14, although only a minority of them was identified in research carried out by the Paris prosecutor's office, as reported by the daily Le Parisien, citing judicial sources.
accusations of rape also point to five non-French military, two of Equatorial Guinea and three of Chad, as he said the French afternoon Le Monde activist Paula Donovan, director of the NGO Aids-Free World.
the UN report, called "sexually abused by soldiers of the international armed forces Children" was transmitted to France by a Swedish UN official, Anders Kompass, in reaction, according to him, the inertia of the organization.
for that reason, Kompass was suspended from duty and subjected to an internal administrative investigation.
the sangaris operation was launched in December 2013 to end clashes between Christian and Muslim militias in Central African Republic is supported by the UN and 2,000 French soldiers are involved.
Source: Telam