Shocked to the core

More than 100 victims have come forward in the Central African Republic with appalling new accounts of sexual abuse, including bestiality, by UN peacekeepers and French troops, the United Nations said Thursday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "shocked to the core" by the allegations that emerged after a UN team traveled to south-central Kemo prefecture to interview the women and girls.

"We must face the fact that a number of troops sent to protect people instead acted with hearts of darkness," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

UN rights officers have so far interviewed 108 alleged victims, "the vast majority" of whom are under-age girls who were raped, sexually abused or exploited by foreign troops, he said.

UN teams received accounts that troops from France's Sangaris force coerced girls to engage in bestiality in return for small amounts of money.

AIDS-Free World, a civil society group that tracks peacekeeper sex abuse cases, said three girls told a UN rights officer that in 2014 they were tied up and undressed by a Sangaris commander inside a camp and forced to have sex with a dog.

Dujarric stressed that "the facts have not been ascertained" in what could be the most serious wave of allegations to date to hit the troubled peace mission in the Central African Republic.

France's UN Ambassador Francois Delattre and US Ambassador Samantha Power both called the allegations "sickening."

French authorities are determined to "shed full light" on the reported cases and will take "exemplary disciplinary action" if the allegations are substantiated, said Delattre.

France sent its Sangaris intervention force to the Central African Republic in December 2013 and while the troops are not part of the UN mission, they have been mandated by the Security Council to help restore peace to the country.

Under UN rules, the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting peacekeeper sexual abuse lies with the countries that contribute the troops and police to the peace missions.

As disturbing allegations of sexual assault by troops targeting civilians mounted, Ban in August fired the mission chief, but new claims have continued to emerge.

Earlier this week, the United Nations reported two new cases of sexual abuse by Burundian and Moroccan troops, including one that involved a 14-year-old girl.