A/HRC/26/53 C. Breaches of international humanitarian law 29. The cycle of violence into which the country has been plunged gives rise to serious breaches of international humanitarian law. The Independent Expert was informed during her first visit of attacks committed by unidentified armed groups in Bangui, and especially in the interior of the country, targeting civilians and the goods essential to their survival, as well as humanitarian workers or their ambulances. The level of cruelty was such that some patients were reportedly slaughtered in their hospital beds and medicines were looted. Such insecurity forces humanitarian workers to rein back their activities and jeopardizes the lives of internally displaced persons unable to access the necessary assistance. These acts seemed to have abated during the second visit of the Independent Expert. 30. In March 2014, the Independent Expert in her oral update stressed that the constant fear of attacks against civilians by anti-Balaka in Bangui and by anti-Balaka and ex-Seleka in the hinterland, and clashes between these two groups across the country, were a threat to human rights. Several districts of Bangui and other regions of the country have lost their Muslim populations, who have been forced to flee. Muslims living in the PK12 district of Bangui left the city on 28 April 2014. Some Muslims remain in the KM5 district. During her second visit, the Independent Expert met with members of that Muslim community who revealed the difficulties they faced in convincing Muslims to stay in the district owing to the restrictions imposed on their freedom of movement. She also noted that the mosque housed many Muslims seeking refuge from other districts in Bangui. Despite the presence of international forces in the area, Muslims could not leave their neighbourhood for fear of being attacked by the anti-Balaka who watched closely for the slightest sign of movement in order to attack them. The Independent Expert had been told of a similar situation during her visit to the PK12 district at a time when Muslims were still living there. Two incidents confirm that these fears are justified. On 28 April 2014, an attack on a convoy heading north left two persons dead, and three Muslims were killed in the KM5 district by antiBalaka on 29 April 2014. 31. Currently, thousands of persons, mostly Muslims, rely solely on the protection of the international MISCA, Sangaris and EUFOR CAR forces. The Independent Expert stressed that some communities were virtually inaccessible in Bangui and other parts of the country, and that humanitarian assistance only reached them with great difficulty. The Muslims in Boda had been in this situation during her initial visit. The attack against the Médecins sans frontière health centre in Nanga Boguila on 26 April 2014, which left 22 dead, and the attack on a humanitarian convoy in Dikissou on 28 April 2014, which left 2 dead, were of a nature as to be in violation of common article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. On her second visit, the Independent Expert was informed that the Muslims in Boda had finally received humanitarian assistance. V. Fragility of the State and technical assistance and capacitybuilding requirements 32. The Independent Expert was informed during the course of her two visits that the root causes of the crisis lay in the failure by successive governments to uphold civil and socioeconomic rights and in the marginalization of some of the northern regions of the country, and of the Muslim religious minority in particular. 33. The Independent Expert was told that even the non-Muslim majority, which seemingly benefited from administrative and social services, had also often been marginalized because of nepotism and injustices committed under some of the successive regimes. Hence, the root causes of the conflict are to be found in the inequalities maintained by successive governments through their often discriminatory public policies. These social GE.14-03816 11