Paris - President Francois Hollande on Thursday vowed to "show no mercy" if French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic are found guilty of having sexually assaulted hungry children in exchange for food.
According to a French judicial source, 14 soldiers dispatched to the chaos-ridden nation to restore order after a 2013 coup are implicated in a probe into the alleged sexual abuse of several children there -- the youngest just nine -- who had begged for something to eat.
"If some soldiers have behaved badly, I will show no mercy," Hollande told reporters a day after The Guardian newspaper broke the story.
Soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea are also accused in the leaked UN report that implicates French troops, said Paula Donovan of the AIDS-Free World advocacy group.
"One of the children interviewed said that he had seen his friend, aged 9 or 10, with 2 soldiers from Equatorial Guinea," Donovan told AFP by e-mail.
"The friend performed fellatio and was sodomised by one soldier while the other kept watch, and then the soldiers exchanged roles."
Another child "reported witnessing his friend being sodomised by two Chadian soldiers while a third Chadian soldier watched," she added.
AFP
