EU to send troops to strife-torn nation

Troops from several EU countries will begin deploying in the strife-torn Central African Republic next month, a French official said yesterday.

“In March, in a few weeks, there will be in the Central African Republic several hundred troops coming from several countries of the European Union,” the junior minister for European affairs, Thierry Repentin, told French media. “It’s a major step forward.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced on Friday that the bloc planned to send 1,000 troops to the former French colony, which has been engulfed in chaos for nearly a year. She did not give a timeline.