June 22, 2025: The Central African Republic/CAR is suffering an unprecedented outbreak of fighting between nomadic herders and farmers who have long tilled the land and produced the food that feeds CAR and some people in neighboring nations.

The current farmer/herder conflict has its origins in the on-going CAR civil war. This enabled the farmer-herder violence to escalate to unprecedented levels. What made this possible was that farmers formed heavily armed militias to protect the farmers and their crops. At the same time herders in neighboring Chad saw an opportunity to graze their animals in the lush CAR grasslands.

The CAR government had been expanding its administrative and police presence in the rural provinces where all the conflicts were taking place. This provided an opportunity to work out a new peace deal to resolve the herder/farmer conflicts. That would make It possible to confront the armed herders coming from neighboring Chad, and force the Chadian government to prevent their own herders from invading CAR.

In 2019 the CAR government signed peace agreements with the two major herder militias, Unité pour la paix en Centrafrique/UPC) and Retour, Réclamation, Réhabilitation/3R. The government had been fighting UPC and 3R since 2013. These two groups were largely responsible for the 50 percent increase in herder/farmer violence between 2013 and 2023 caused the peace agreement to collapse. Despite this, the government forces, with assistance from Russian mercenaries and soldiers from neighboring Rwanda, suppressed them a bit. This quickly fell apart as CAR soldiers led by corrupt officers organized their own cattle rustling operation to compete with the existing rustling gangs. This left the herders to abandon their traditional routes and instead move their hungry herds into farmer’s fields. Unable to depend on the CAR soldiers for protection, the herders turned to the outlaw militias for protection. That cost the herders money, but was cheaper than suffering cattle losses from CAR army raids.

Substantial Western foreign aid since 2014 was applied in an effort to permanently solve the herder/farmer conflicts. This didn’t work either. One reason for that was that CAR continued to neglect the herders' needs while putting most of their efforts, and money into making life easier for the farmers. Unlike the herders, the farmers are stationary and easier to tax, govern and police. Providing veterinary and range management services to herders had long been neglected. That led to herders refusing to pay taxes and turning to militias for protection and black market merchants for supplies. The lack of government presence in areas where herders were predominant led to the influx of foreign herders and their cattle. These heavily armed and aggressive herders came mainly from Chad. The CAR government had been neglecting the growing herder problems since the 1960s. It never got better, only worse and is now a major crisis.

Another problem was worsening relations with the Chad government since the 2013 CAR army coup. Recent efforts to stabilize relations with Chad and restore law and order to the herder territories shows some promise. CAR farmers and herders would prefer peace but that requires reforms in the CAR government and cooperation from neighboring Chad. Everyone is exhausted from years of conflict, chaos and losses. Now might be the moment for substantial and lasting reforms.

Then again, maybe not. Since the 2013 military takeover of the corrupt CAR government led to a civil war, the country has been in chaos. Fifteen years ago spillover warfare and banditry continued to trouble the impoverished and chaos-ridden CAR. The Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army/LRA still had bases in the southeastern CAR despite operations by Ugandan special forces to root them out. At that point the country faced the threat of a collapsing peace agreement and a revival of rebel activity.

The CAR was unstable to begin with, but the fact it was caught between the Congo's many wars and Sudan's Darfur war adds to the turmoil. The CAR armed forces then contained around 5,000 troops. The bulk of its army was based in the national capital, Bangui, which is located in the south. The army’s Central African Armed Forces, or FACA, has a few scattered detachments around the country which are occasionally beefed up to make punitive raids in the north, mostly tackling insurgents and bandits. In late November 2009 an armed group belonging to the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace/CPJP shot it out with the FACA up north. There were skirmishes but at least one major battle, in the town of Quartier Sultan, about 700 kilometers north of the national capital, Bangui. The CPJP then announced it had liberated the capital of Bamingui-Bangoran province, Ndele which is near Quartier Sultan. At least 15 government soldiers were killed in the battle.

In January 2010 the government reported the death of Charles Massi, a former defense minister who became the leader of the CPJP's political wing. Massi was arrested in Chad in 2009 and handed over to the CAR. Opponents of the regime of President Francois Bozize accused the government of capturing Massi and torturing him to death. The government denied it.

The government regards the CPJP as a threat. The CPJP refused to join the Comprehensive Peace Accord/CPA of June 2008. This brought several other rebel groups into the political arena, among them long-time CAR rebel outfits like the Peoples' Army for the Restoration of the Republic and of Democracy/ APRD and the Union of Democratic Forces/UFDR. These two groups agreed to a disarmament and demobilization process. Not the CPJP.

In Spring 2010 President François Bozize twice postponed presidential and national assembly elections. Parliament then gave Bozize permission to remain president past the end of his term, which was supposed to end in June of this year. In August the elections were scheduled for January 2011. The opposition has formed a political umbrella organization Forces of Change Collective and, like so many other African nations, the opposition is already predicting there will be massive vote fraud and election rigging. The big concern is that the CPA will unravel and former APRD and UFDR fighters will return to the bush. Two other rebel factions, which at one time claimed they had joined the peace process, the Democratic Front of the Central African People/FDPC and the Movement of Central African Liberators for Justice/MLCJ accused the government of bad faith and threatened to take up arms. The MLCJ was once a faction of the UFDR.

In July 2010 the government accused the MLCJ of launching an attack on a small FACA garrison in the town of Birao in northeast CAR, near Sudan border, but that was not certain. The CPJP claimed it launched the attack. Then the FACA insisted it was sure the MLCJ was the perpetrator but for an odd reason. The MLCJ wants to participate in the demobilization process and claims it was being denied the opportunity. That may not be as far out as it seemed. Some disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs in Africa provide former guerrillas and militiamen with some training, farm implements, and a little cash. The UN had a small peacekeeping and training force in Birao, MINURCAT. It had around 300 soldiers. That was not enough. There is never enough of anything to bring peace and prosperity to CAR.