SUMMARY

Both the FPRC and the MPC (Al Khatim rebels) have their origin in the former Séléka alliance in the Central African Republic. The Séléka was led by Michel Djotodia and was formed by different rebel groups from the northeast with a common enemy in former president Bozize and the anti-Balaka, and they had a common religion being Muslims. The ex-Séléka had large issues of keeping all of the different rebel groups together, and in the effort to keep the groups unified they reshaped themselves into the FPRC. This effort failed however, and several groups splintered from the FPRC. Among others was the UPC led by Ali Darass and Mahmat Al Khatim that broke away in 2014. Al Khatim on his part split from the UPC and formed the MPC, Mouvement Patriotique de Centrafrique, in the summer of 2015.

The FPRC, MPC alliance started to cooperate with each other and had some joint training in the Nana-Grébizi province. In October 2016 the two groups attacked and killed internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the town of Kaga Bandoro, one of the FPRC's strongholds.

FPRC, MPC first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2016, when the one-sided violence resulted in more than 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached on 12 October that year when the alliance attacked civilians in Kaga Bandoro village in the Central African Republic, an attack that resulted in 37 deaths.