Central African Republic, 2021 — rebel coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event coded as an attempted rebel coupi in the Central African Republic on 13 January 2021, when a coalition of armed groups led by the former president Francois Bozize advanced on the capital Bangui in a bid to overthrow President Faustin Archange Touadera, in the aftermath of a disputed December 2020 election. Bozize, who had himself seized power in a 2003 coup and been ousted in 2013, had been barred from running in the December 2020 presidential election; his supporters and an alliance of militias, the Coalition of Patriots for Change, then launched an offensive, seizing towns across the country and pushing toward Bangui to prevent Touadera's re election and inauguration. On 13 January 2021 the rebels attacked the outskirts of the capital, but the assault was repelled by CAR government forces backed by United Nations peacekeepers, Rwandan troops, and Russian Wagner Group mercenaries, who had been rushed in to defend the government.

Touadera survived, was inaugurated for a second term, and his foreign backed forces then went on the offensive to push the rebels back from much of the territory they had seized, though the CPC insurgency and the country's chronic instability persisted.