Earlier this week the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic (CAR) announced that Maturin Kombo, who was in the court’s custody charged with crimes committed in 2014, died in hospital in Bangui.
Twelve years ago, as CAR was in the throes of a civil war, I arrived in the village of Guen, in the southwest of the country, to conduct research. While there, we confirmed that in early February 2014, anti-balaka forces had attacked Muslim civilians, killing at least 72 men and boys, some as young as nine.
I will never forget a conversation I had with the father of 10-year-old Oumarou Bouba. “As we were running away, he was shot,” he told me. “He fell down, but they finished him off with a machete.”
Anti-balaka militias rose up across CAR to fight the Seleka, a predominantly Muslim coalition that took control of the country in 2013. They began to target Muslim civilians, particularly in the west, equating them with Seleka or their sympathizers.
At the time, we met with Maturin Kombo an anti-balaka leader who was in charge in Guen. He denied the massacre occurred but was open about his disgust towards Muslims. He was a brazen and proud leader who thought he could evade justice.
Then the transitional government created the Special Criminal Court (SCC) to help curb widespread impunity. The court is mandated to investigate and prosecute grave crimes committed during the country’s armed conflicts since 2003 and is staffed by both international and national judges and prosecutors. It began its work in 2018 and Kombo was arrested in 2022.
The trial against him and six other co-defendants, including fellow anti-balaka leader Edmond Beïna, for the atrocities in Guen is ongoing.
The fact that Kombo will not see the end of the trial is a loss for survivors and relatives of victims of the massacres. But his death also highlights the continued need for justice, for the crimes committed in Guen and elsewhere in the country, and the key role the SCC plays in delivering it. The Central African government and the court’s international partners should step up efforts to ensure the court has the resources it needs to continue its essential work and can deliver on its crucial mandate.
Kombo may have died before the end of his trial, but the ongoing proceedings against his co-defendants provide hope that justice, no matter how long it takes, will be served.
