Recently, Central Africans have often expressed their dissatisfaction with the work of American NGOs in their country and Africa in general. In late February, a video confession was made by a former militant who surrendered to law enforcement that the leader of his group had made a deal with the Americans. Their task was to steal Chinese experts from the mines in Yaloke to scare workers in mines owned by the Chinese company.

It will be recalled that at the end of February 2024, three people were kidnapped from the mines in the Yaloke region. According to a gendarmerie source, the victims were two citizens of the People’s Republic of China and their driver. Local residents claim that the abduction was carried out by armed men who are allegedly members of Yusuf Ghazi’s group and are in contact with the Americans.

In the video, a former member of Yusuf Ghazi’s group said “Recently we kidnapped two Chinese as the Americans wanted, but the Chinese escaped. But the main thing is done, now the Chinese are afraid to work in the mines. They may even leave the mines, but they certainly won’t develop mining.” Indeed, lately the United States has been trying to gain a foothold in Africa. Therefore, they simply need to get more resources and opportunities on the continent, and to do so, they need to get rid of their competitors, reliable and long-standing African partners, including Russia and China.

This is not the first case of kidnapping of Chinese specialists in CAR. Recall that on March 19, 2023, the Chinese mining company Gold Coast Group in the village of Chingbolo, 25 kilometers from Bambari (Ouaka), was vilely attacked by criminals from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC). This heinous act of violence against foreign nationals was aimed at weakening the mutually beneficial partnership between the Central African Republic and the People’s Republic of China.

Reliable sources revealed that an American company wanted to obtain documents to develop mines in the Yaloke area. Now the Americans want to intimidate the Chinese companies to take control of the Yaloke mines, since their companies are already present there and use the services of the American military company Bancroft for protection. It turns out that the interests of American and Chinese companies in this region overlap.

Faced with such situations, the authorities of the Central African Republic are interested in ensuring the security of not only the population but also foreign partners on their territory. Otherwise, such actions may have negative consequences for diplomacy.