The Central African Republic has unveiled a stature of the late Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in Bangui, APA can report on Thursday.
The ceremony for the unveiling of two statures including that of Prighzin’s close confidante Dmitru Utkin was held in the CAR capital on Wednesday attended by high profile CAR officials including defense minister Rameau Claude Bireau and military chiefs.
The monuments are in honour of the two Russian lead mercenaries who were seen as largely responsible for prolonging the life of the government of Faustin-Achang Touadera.
The two were killed in a suspicious plane crash last year.
The CAR police described the statures as a monument to the special ties between Bangui and Moscow.
The Wagner Group is very highly regarded by the government of President Touadera who in 2018 had requested help from Prigozhin to contain onslaughts from CAR rebel fighters who were threatening to overrun Bangui.
Clothed in a bullet-proof vest, the Prigozhin stature shows him with a walkie-talkie while that of Utkin holding an AK-47 rifle.
CAR has Wagner’s most visible presence in Africa, operating gold and diamond mines in the country.
Since a fallout with Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prigozhin’s subsequent death, Wagner Group is now known as Corp Africa.
However CAR still officially refers to the mercenary organisation as the Wagner Group which is also present in a number of African countries including Mali and Burkina Faso.
WN/as/APA