EUFOR-CAR II – End of mission in the Central African Republic

After the mission was extended in October, Spain decided to relieve the troops deployed and send a second contingent composed of 73 members of the Army and 24 of the Spanish Civil Guard. They joined the six thousand soldiers already operational at Operation HQ in Bangui.

The Spanish forces deployed in RCA between 2014 and 2015 have significantly contributed to improving the situation in the region. The Special Operations Force has carried out day and night reconnaissance tasks and has acquired a comprehensive knowledge of its surroundings, which is always crucial in this type of operation.

The contingent has maintained contacts with different local leaders and established permanent detachments in the third district of the capital, thereby improving understanding between the EUFOR troops and the locals and increasing security and stability in the area. That, in turn, has contributed to the return of displaced people from the different camps scattered throughout the city.

The Civil Guard has provided security in the third and fifth districts of Bangui, on its own or in combination with the Central African security forces the Spanish agents have been mentoring.

End of mission in the Central African Republic

During the first days of March the Army soldiers and most of the civil guards deployed in CAR will be returning to Spain. They were taking part in the European mission EUFOR-CAR, which is now coming to a close.

The operation, which entered its redeployment phase on 6 February, will end on 15 March. The Spanish units were deactivated gradually and operational capacity was maintained until 24 February. From 1 to 10 March, 73 members of the Special Operation Forces and 17 civil guards left CAR’s capital city, Bangui, and returned home.

The mission lasted ten months, since May 2015. A total of 197 Spanish soldiers took part, deployed in Bangui in two rotations, and carried out 447 operations. To that we should add more than 150 operations by the Civil Guard, summed up in over 100,000 km driven around the capital. During that period there were two clashes with armed locals, which fortunately did not leave casualties.

The EU mission was designed as a stopgap operation which would come to an end in October, six months after reaching full operational capacity. However, UN Security Council Resolution 2181 of October 2014 extended it until March 2015. The operation entered its redeployment phase on 6 February.

The EUFOR CAR military force deployed in Bangui was composed of 650 troops structured in a Multinational Battalion, a Police Unit (made up of members of the French Gendarmerie and the Spanish Civil Guard), a Special Operations Force and a Joint Multinational Logistics Centre.

The Commander of the Operation was stationed in Larissa (Greece), while the Force Commander and HQ were in Bangui. The nation leading the mission was France.

After 15 March only a small contingent of eight civil guards will remain in Bangui as part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic – known as MINUSCA, by its French acronym.