After mediation with UN peacekeeping forces sent to the area, 'the town is calm. The armed groups have withdrawn their men from the town centre and displaced people have started to return,' he said.
It followed a local split several months ago within a militia called the Popular Front for the Rebirth of the Central African Republic , several sources in Bria said.
On one side are members of the Runga ethnic group, including the FPRC's military chief Abdoulaye Hissene and several of his officers, and local members of the Gula and Kara groups on the other, they said. "The Gula and Kara alliance has taken over almost all of the town. There are bodies in all the streets. The town centre is empty. All the Runga have fled," an aid worker contacted by AFP on Sunday said.
The head of the CAR Red Cross, Antoine Mbaobogo, said the figure of around 50 dead given by the prefect"seems credible to me."Violence flared last week at Birao, a key town in the northeast straddling the road to neighbouring Sudan, between the FPRC and a group called the Movement of Central African Liberators for Justice , which is mainly drawn from the Kara community.
Both groups had joined other militias in Khartoum last February 6 to sign a peace agreement with the government.More than a quarter of the CAR's population have fled their homes since the start of the civil conflict in 2013.
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