A United Nations official who investigated allegations that French peacekeepers had sexually abused children in the Central African Republic
says she informed the French military authorities within a month of
having started her inquiry, giving a possible new twist to a
long-running scandal that led to the intervention of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The
official, Gallianne Palayret, a human rights investigator who led the
first inquiries into suspected abuse, said in a Skype interview that she
had informed the French peacekeepers’ commanding officer and the unit’s
legal affairs officer about the allegations in May 2014. This was the
same month that she started interviewing children who might have been
victimized and two months before the French authorities have said they
first heard about the matter.
