From Reuters

France said it will start disarming fighters in the Central African Republic by force if necessary on Monday, as relative calm returned to the capital Bangui following three days of heavy fighting between Christians and Muslims.

Residents reported sporadic gunfire from some Bangui neighbourhoods on Sunday after the violence in which the Red Cross said at least 394 people had died.

Despite a government order for gunmen to return to their barracks, a Reuters reporter saw soldiers in camouflage fatigues driving around in pickup trucks near the presidential palace and in clear view of French troops, deployed to the country under United Nations authorisation.

Central African Republic has slid into chaos as interim president Michel Djotodia struggled to control his loose band of Seleka fighters, who have attacked members of the Christian majority and prompted them to organise militias.

Djotodia seized power in March with the help of Seleka, a mainly Muslim rebel group that has been fighting the militias.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said fighters had to hand over their weapons. “It’s from tomorrow that the disarmament will start. First we’ll ask nicely and if they don’t react, we’ll do it by force,” he said in an interview on French television station LCI on Sunday.

France is deploying 1,600 troops to its former colony after the U.N. Security Council authorised it on Thursday to use force to help African peacekeepers struggling to restore order. The African Union force is also due to be increased to 6,000 from 3,500.

On Sunday the morgue at Bangui’s Hopital Communautaire was full, with bodies piled up there and in the hospital’s corridors, another Reuters correspondent saw.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the death toll would have been much higher without the deployment. “Calm has returned in Bangui, even if acts of violence are still being committed,” he told the France 3 TV channel. “Had we not intervened, the 394 deaths would have been 5,000 or 10,000.”

Written by By Emmanuel Braun and Paul-Marin Ngoupana | Read more at Reuters