Dimitri Siti, director of a Russian cultural center in Central African Republic (CAR) who was seriously injured on Friday in a parcel bomb blast near the Russian Embassy in Bangui, has been evacuated and rushed to Russia.
The Russian Embassy in the country has confirmed his departure and indicated that he is «in serious but stable condition» after spending the whole weekend in hospital. The legation regretted that the explosion of the package was intended to «damage» relations between Moscow and Bangui, although the package in question was not addressed to the sender.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has indicated that it has sent a note of protest to the Government of the Central African Republic to request a thorough investigation into the matter, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Siti had previously received a number of death threats, according to local security forces, who confirmed that she had received a package earlier, also containing threats.
Last week, Wagner Group founder Yevgeni Prigozhin pointed directly to France as being responsible for the attack. The company’s press service then published a statement on his behalf on its Telegram account in which it described Siti as «a patriot» and detailed that it had already received in November a cargo «sent from Togo containing a photograph of his son, who lives in France.»
Prigozhin, an oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, indicated that said package «contained a note saying that next time he would receive the head of his son» and denounced that Siti is in grave danger.
«If he dies, he will always be a symbol of this struggle. No Russian will ever withdraw from the African continent until all colonialists leave the borders of their countries,» he said.
However, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has asserted that Progozhin’s words are «false» and stressed that this is a «good example of how Russian propaganda works».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
