As we watch the crisis in the Central African Republic unfold we cannot sit idly by and simply read the horrific news reports and witness the massive carnage during the evening news. We must raise our collective voices to pressure the international community to further intervene in the mass sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing that are taking place daily in the Central African Republic against Muslims in retaliation for the mass killings of Christians months prior.

The international press and humanitarian agencies have ceaselessly reported about the atrocities that are occurring on a daily basis in the poor, landlocked African country including executions of entire families, burning of homes and people, and sparing no one save those who the perpetrators bestow mercy upon or who escape into the bush. Countless reports and social media updates have emerged from the Central African Republic that Muslims are being executed in town squares leaving a bloodbath for everyone to witness. Charred and maimed bodies from lynchings litter the streets. Some bodies have even been devoured by wild animals. Children and their parents are being hacked to death and executed with impunity. And, the requisite atrocities are also occurring — rape, recruitment of children into the lawless militias, stealing, and looting of personal property. And while French and African Union troops have been deployed to the country to defuse the situation things are becoming far worse, not better. People’s lives and livelihoods hang in the proverbially balance while the international community and the Central African Republic government wait to quell the violence. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Muslims are fleeing the country in search of protection in neighboring countries leaving behind not only their citizenship, but also their sense of safety in a country that should protect all of its citizens regardless of religious affiliation.

Read the rest of the essay on Medium.

Also, read Amnesty International’s new report, Ethnic Cleansing and Sectarian Killings in the Central African Republic.