BANGUI (Reuters) - An armed militia killed 34 civilians in an attack on Tuesday in Central African Republic, a government spokesman said, issuing a deadline for the group’s leader to give up the perpetrators to the authorities.

The attack was the most deadly since 14 armed groups agreed a peace deal in February that was meant to bring stability to a country rocked by violence since 2013, when mainly Muslim Selaka rebels ousted the then president, prompting reprisals from mostly Christian militia.

The group ‘Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation,’ or 3R, attacked a number of villages in the northwest region Pahoua, seeking revenge for the killing of an ethnic Peul, government spokesman Ange Kazagui said at a joint briefing on Wednesday with the United Nation’s MINUSCA peacekeeping mission.

The government calls on 3R leader Sidiki Abass to “arrest and hand over those responsible for this massacre to the authorities in the next 72 hours or risk being held personally responsible”, Kazagui said.

The bloodshed will further test the peace agreement, which has already come under strain due to disagreements over representation in the cabinet.

“MINUSCA asks 3R in particular and all the armed groups in general to show strict respect for international human rights and the reconciliation and peace agreement,” MINUSCA spokeswoman Uwolowulakana Ikavi-Gbetanou said at the briefing.

The government and rebels expressed optimism when the accord was signed on Feb. 5. But lasting peace is not guaranteed: similar agreements in 2014, 2015 and 2017 all broke down.

The 3R group emerged in late 2015 to protect the minority Peul population, who are mostly Muslim cattle herders, from attacks by Christian anti-balaka militias.

Thousands of people have died because of the unrest in the diamond and gold-producing country, and a fifth of the 4.5 million population have fled their homes. </s> YANGON (Reuters) - Some 30 people died in clashes between ethnic rebels and Myanmar security forces in a restive area along the border with China on Monday, the government said, dealing a blow to leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s goal of reaching peace with minorities.

Suu Kyi’s nearly one-year-old government is increasingly besieged by ethnic rebels, grappling with an alliance of militias in the north and a new Rohingya insurgency rebelling against decades of persecution in the northwest of the country.

The attack came after the Nobel Peace Prize winner met a delegation of ethnic armed groups last week to convince them to take part in a major peace conference. Suu Kyi swept to power in 2015 on promises of national reconciliation and the meeting was aimed at giving fresh impetus to the stuttering peace process.

“I strongly urge all sides to come to the peace negotiating table by abandoning the armed attacks, which have caused many deaths and problems for the citizens, who are not guilty, and the residents of the area,” Suu Kyi said in a statement reacting to the assault released late on Monday.

Fighters from the predominantly ethnic Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) launched a pre-dawn attack on police posts, military installations and government administrators in the capital of the northeastern Kokang region, Laukkai.

As a result, some 30 people died, including civilians and police officers. Hotels and cars were destroyed and four policemen have been taken hostage, the government said.

MNDAA is a part of the Northern Alliance - a coalition of rebel groups comprising one of Myanmar’s most powerful militias, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and two smaller groups that have been in a stand-off with the Myanmar military since clashes in the Kokang area in 2015.

Many died and tens of thousands fled the region during that fighting, which also spilled over into Chinese territory and resulted in the death of five Chinese people, angering Beijing.

Myanmar state television, MRTV, said the fighting with MNDAA was continuing at the time of Suu Kyi’s statement.
Armed militias kill over 30 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks since a peace deal was reached back in February of this year.