Pope Francis has told crowds gathered at the main mosque of Central African Republic’s capital that Muslims and Christians are brothers, and must live as such.

Pope Francis, in his Easter address before a huge crowd, denounced the “immense wastefulness” in the world while many go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Africa.

War crimes prosecutors will lay out their evidence this week against former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, accused of murder, torture and hundreds of cases of rape when his militia intervened in a bloody power struggle in neighbouring Central Africa Republic.

Soldiers and rebels have both claimed to have killed several hundred of their opponents in combat yesterday in eastern Chad in what may turn out to be the heaviest fighting since rebels tried to take the capital N’Djamena last year.

The African Union has condemned the coup in the Central African Republic.