Despite the installation of a new president the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) is getting worse.  The capital is rife with mobs forming to hunt down Muslim civilians in retribution for the months of chaos the nation went through after last year’s Muslim-led coup d’etat.

“I call as a matter of utmost urgency upon the international community to strengthen peacekeeping efforts,” said UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, lobbying nations to pitch in and help bring some calm to the troubled nation.  “Many lives are at stake,” she added, as fresh gunfire and looting were reported in CAR’s capital Bangui.

The CAR’s first Muslim leader Michel Djotodia resigned earlier this month.  He was brought to power last year by the Seleka rebels from the minority Muslim community. 

Now with Djotobia having fled the country and the Seleka fleeing the capital Bangui, members of the Christian majority who say they were attacked by Muslims are seeking retribution.  They formed militias called Anti-Balaka, and the UN says there have been widespread reports of revenge attacks on Muslim civilians.

But sectarian violence had not been a component of life in Bangui before the coup, and Christian and Muslim leaders say it’s being exploited by rabble-rousing politicians. 

“We need help for the population, because all our infrastructure is gone, shattered.  There is no education, no health care, no medicine,” said Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, president of the Islamic Central African community.  Layama and Roman Catholic Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga joined Pillay in asking developed nations for help in patching the CAR back together.

“Before life was not like this.  We are living like animals,” the Archbishop said earlier this month.  “We kill each other because there is no justice, I ask God to purify us so he can introduce us again to love each other.”