C.Africa says Frenchman with large cache of weapons held

The authorities in Central African Republic, who are fighting a major armed rebellion, said Monday they had arrested a Frenchman who had a large weapons cache at his home.

"It was someone who said he was a journalist," a government spokesman told AFP.

"And at his home we found a very large cache of weapons," he added.

Valery Zakharov, the Russian national security advisor to President Faustin Archange Touadera, wrote on Twitter: "A foreign citizen was detained in Bangui with an enormous quantity of arms and ammunition."

An investigation was launched to try to clarify the matter, he added.

Tensions have been high in the Central African Republic since elections in December, although a recent surge in violence is just the latest in a civil war that has lasted since the ouster of president Francois Bozize in 2013.

In March, Bozize assumed the leadership of the rebel alliance aiming to overthrow the government.

Russia has since 2018 openly supported the Touadera regime, which only controls about one-third of one of Africa's poorest countries that has been wracked by partisan and communal strife.

More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the elections, the UN says, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced.