SUMMARY
The Central African Republic (CAR) has been deeply affected by prolonged internal conflicts that have destabilized the state and drawn in multiple international actors seeking to restore government authority. Rebel groups have fought the government and one another, and have deliberately targeted civilians, while the government has remained heavily reliant on foreign military support. Since 1989, CAR has experienced state-based, non-state, and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.
2025
The Central African Republic: Government conflict continued throughout 2025 but remained below the intensity of war, causing approximately 200 battle-related deaths. As in previous years the conflict was internationalized. Troop-contributing countries to the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSCA, together with the Government of Russia, again acted as secondary warring parties on the side of the government. Over the course of the year the government fought in three active dyads in this state-based conflict, against the Military Coalition for the Salvation of the People and Recovery (CMSPR), the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), and a CPC breakaway, the Coalition of Patriots for Change-Fundamental (CPC-F). The CPC and CMSPR operated mainly in the northwest, while the CPC-F was active in the east and northeast. The CPC-F had been formed in 2024 by Ali Darassa and Noureddine Adam, who split from the Bozizé-led CPC. The CMSPR, a northwestern group established in 2024 by Armel Sayo, remained active both early in the year and again in December, despite Sayo being arrested in Cameroon in January 2025 and transferred to Bangui in May.
The year was also marked by a significant de-escalation among the longest-standing armed groups. Following a Chad-mediated ceasefire signed in N'Djamena in April 2025, the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) and the Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R), two of the country's most powerful rebel groups, were formally dissolved at a ceremony in Bangui in July, and a disarmament and demobilization process began. In UCDP data, the activities of UPC were coded under the CPC-F, while those of 3R remained under the original CPC. In practice the effect of the ceasefire was partial. Factions of the 3R continued low-intensity clashes and banditry in the northwest. The FPRC, one of the groups under the CPC-F and led by Noureddine Adam, rejected calls to disarm and remained active in the northeast. The dissolutions came in the run-up to the December 2025 general elections and were widely viewed as part of a government effort to stabilize the country ahead of the vote.
A separate strand of violence developed in the southeast. Azande Ani Kpi Gbe (AAKG), an ethnic Azande self-defence militia in Haut-Mbomou prefecture, had been raised and trained in 2024 with Russian (Wagner/Africa Corps) and government backing to fight the UPC, but broke with the government in 2025 after Russian forces attempted to disarm it. Government forces and their Russian allies subsequently clashed repeatedly with the AAKG around Zemio, Mboki and Rafaï. The AAKG advanced neither a territorial claim nor a claim on government, as its grievances centered on the treatment of the Azande community and on the Russian presence. As a result, this fighting was not coded as a state-based incompatibility and does not appear in the UCDP GED. The AAKG was, however, recorded as a perpetrator of one-sided violence, deliberately killing around 30 civilians, mostly Fulani, in Haut-Mbomou.
Communal violence also rose in the country. The farmer-herder non-state conflict (Farmers (CAR) - Herders (CAR)) became active for the first time in 2025, causing approximately 70 deaths concentrated in the northwest. While some combatants were linked to "anti-Balaka" elements, the confrontations were characterized primarily as communal violence between settled farmers and largely Fulani herders. One-sided violence against civilians was also carried out by Russian forces operating in the country. UCDP attributes the Africa Corps' actions to the Government of Russia because the force is controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defence. These forces killed approximately 50 civilians in CAR in 2025, mostly around artisanal mining sites and in the southeast. The CPC also carried out one-sided violence, killing around 15 civilians, mainly in the northwest.
In November 2025, the UN Security Council renewed MINUSCA's mandate for a further year and the presidential elections were held on 28 December 2025. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra was returned for a third term. The main opposition rejected the result as fraudulent, alleging inflated voter rolls and manipulated tallies. It also contested the legitimacy of a third term, which had been made possible only by a 2023 constitutional referendum that removed presidential term limits.
Organized Violence in CAR
The Central African Republic gained independence from France in 1960, seceding peacefully from the French colonial empire. Formerly known as Ubangi-Shari, the territories of present-day CAR formed part of French Equatorial Africa. Colonial rule was exploitative, with concessionary companies extracting and profiting from the country's natural resources, although some infrastructure and agricultural modernization took place during the final two decades of colonial rule. The country has a heterogeneous population, and this ethnic diversity would prove highly volatile for political stability in the years after independence.
In 1962, CAR was transformed into a one-party state under the authoritarian control of David Dacko. Severe instability followed, with military coups and dictatorial rule characterizing much of the period from the 1960s to the late 1980s. A democratic opening took place in the early 1990s, with an elected government taking power. The government nonetheless failed to reconcile the interests of CAR's different ethnic groups, leading to an attempted military coup and an intrastate armed conflict in 2001. The government, assisted by Libya and rebels from the Democratic Republic of Congo, resisted the coup and sought to purge the army's leadership of disloyal elements.
The subsequent dismissal of senior officer François Bozizé led him and his followers to attempt to seize power in 2002. The following year Bozizé defeated the government and took power. He initiated a national reconciliation process, inviting different segments of society to deliberate on a new constitution, and in elections in 2005 he was victorious in a vote recognized internationally as free and fair.
Bozizé was soon challenged by new rebels who accused him, like leaders before him, of favouring his own ethnic group at the expense of others. Various groups continued to challenge his rule until March 2013, when he was ousted by the Seleka alliance. Sectarian violence followed, as militias supporting Bozizé and militias from the former Seleka group clashed. In an effort to quell the violence, President Djotodia resigned in January 2014, and Catherine Samba-Panza was elected interim president by the National Transitional Council. Violence between non-state actors, often along ethnic and religious lines, nonetheless continued. General elections were held in late December 2015, and on 30 March 2016 Faustin-Archange Touadéra became president. The security situation remained volatile, and the armed forces were practically non-functional and dependent on international forces such as MINUSCA, which has operated in the country since 2014 to provide security and restore government authority. MINUSCA contributor governments are viewed by UCDP as secondary warring parties in the Central African Republic: Government conflict.
A peace agreement known as the Khartoum Accord was signed with 14 armed groups in February 2019, but the security situation did not substantially improve. The conflict escalated sharply after the constitutional court rejected Bozizé's candidacy for the elections of late December 2020. On 15 December 2020, six rebel groups (MPC, UPC, FPRC, 3R, anti-Balaka Mokom, and anti-Balaka Ngaissona) declared themselves united under the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) against the government. The government accused Bozizé of plotting a coup with the CPC, and in March 2021 the coalition confirmed him as its general coordinator.
The CPC's offensive reached the outskirts of Bangui in early 2021 but was repelled. Meanwhile, the Russian presence became deeply entrenched. Wagner personnel trained and fought alongside the national army, took control of mining sites and other natural resources, and were repeatedly implicated in serious abuses against civilians. In 2023, a new constitution adopted by referendum removed presidential term limits and extended the presidential term, consolidating President Touadéra's hold on power.
The CPC weakened and fragmented over this period, even as new armed actors emerged. In the southeast, the Azande Ani Kpi Gbe (AAKG) emerged in 2023. In the northwest, the CMSPR was established in 2024 under Armel Sayo with the aim of overthrowing the government. The coalition itself split in 2024, when Ali Darassa of the UPC and Noureddine Adam of the FPRC broke away to form the Coalition of Patriots for Change-Fundamental (CPC-F).
