Centrafrique National Gendarmerie
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1962 Ministry of attachment: Ministère de la Sécurité publique Workforce: 2 220 General manager: Général de brigade Thierry-Marie METINKOE Address: Direction Générale de la Gendarmerie Nationale Tél.: 00 236 750 486 86 
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History
The French national Gendarmerie settled at the end of 1920s in the Oubangui-Chari colony, which is a part of the French Equatorial Africa (FEA). In 1945, a section is created on this territory and the first African auxiliary gendarmes are recruited the following year. Ten years later, a company is constituted in Bangui. Its name is successively the Oubangui-Chari squad of gendarmes, then of Central Africa. At the time of the independence in August 1960, this unit becomes the Central African Republic corps of gendarmes, then later the Central African Gendarmerie.
The workforce is of 1 600 gendarmes in 1970, about 1 000 in 1983 and approximately 1 300 at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1991, the Central African national Gendarmerie includes a territorial corps of gendarmes divided in 4 squads, 15 companies and 116 brigades and specialized units, as well as a mobile corps of gendarmes consisting of a services platoon, two intervention platoons and a National Gendarmerie Intervention group.
In 2003, the Central African Gendarmerie consists of 4 battalions, a mobile corps of gendarmes, a territorial corps of gendarmes and a training centre. During its history, the institution is confronted with several "coups d’état" and three civil wars from 2004. The inter-ethnic and inter-religious confrontations as well as the violence within the civilian populations precipitate a humanitarian crisis, which led to the European Union intervention with the deployment of the European Gendarmerie Force (EUFOR RCA), the African Union and the UNO (MINUSCA).
Organization
Central Organization
Territorial organization
• National Corps of gendarmes:
- 6 squads,
- 16 companies,
- 15 surveillance and intervention platoons,
- 1 search and criminal investigation section,
- 4 search and criminal investigation brigades,
- 114 territorial brigades.
• Mobile Corps of gendarmes.
Missions
The Central African Gendarmerie is a military force the missions of which in cooperation with the staff of the Central African police consist in ensuring the security and the public safety, the maintenance of law and order and the execution of the laws with the aim of protecting institutions, people and properties.
Staff
The Central African Gendarmerie includes 2 220 personnels, officers and non-commissioned officers. They have a military status. There is no conscript in the Gendarmerie because there is no conscription in the Central African Republic. The women are recruited since 1990. The stationing in barracks is not the standard for all the gendarmes. In Bangui, some of them benefit from an accommodation provided with the job within the Izamo camp.
Training institutions
The Gendarmerie national school is located in the Kolongo district in the 6th district in the South of Bangui.
Main equipment
• Armament: pistols, MAT 49, MAS 36, Kalashnikov, DKM, RPG 7, Makarov handguns.
• Vehicles: pick-up.
Cooperation
Until 2013, some gendarmes of the technical and structural cooperation with the Gendarmerie and with the Central African police were committed within the Security Sector Reform framework (SSR).
© The iconography was provided by the concerned gendarmeries