Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 13/12/2013 (2472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Christians gather in a makeshift camp for internally displaced people set in the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, Friday Dec. 13, 2013. Over 30,000 have gathered there, prompting the UN to start food distribution a kilometer away. Elsewhere in town, French troops backed by an helicopter traded fire with unidentified assailants as France's Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Bangui. More than 500 people have been killed over the past eight days in sectarian fighting in Central African Republic. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BANGUI, Central African Republic - French troops backed by a helicopter traded fire with suspected rebels in a tense Bangui neighbourhood on Friday, as France's militarychief arrived in Central African Republic to see how his troops are doing trying to stabilize the lawless country.

The violence that has left the former French colony verging on anarchy showed few signs of abating Friday in the capital's Miskine neighbourhood, where about a dozen Muslim men with machetes faced off against a group of Christian youths.

Anger boiled over in the neighbourhood after the overnight death of a Christian taxi driver at the hands of the mostly Muslim former rebels. It remains unclear whether or how many casualties there have been in the neighbourhood Friday.

Violence outside the capital included a massacre Thursday of 27 Muslims in the village of Bohong in the western part of the country, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. In a