The announcement comes after Amnesty International accused peacekeepers with the UN’s CAR mission, known as MINUSCA, of raping a 12-year-old girl and killing a boy and his father during an operation in the country’s capital Bangui earlier this month.
That followed allegations that UN peacekeepers had sexually abused street children in Bangui and a separate allegation of child sexual abuse against a peacekeeper in the eastern part of the country.
The UN mission in the poor, restive country has also been accused of failing to follow up on allegations that more than a dozen French soldiers dispatched to restore order after a 2013 coup sexually abused children in exchange for food and other provisions.
‘Angered and ashamed’
"I cannot put into words how anguished and angered and ashamed I am by recurrent reports over the years of reports of sex abuse and exploitation by UN forces," Ban said Wednesday.
He said he also will hold a special meeting Thursday with the heads of all peacekeeping missions around the world to stress their responsibilities to "report allegations immediately, investigate through and act decisively".
A probe into the allegations by Amnesty was opened by the UN mission in CAR on Tuesday.
The London-based rights watchdog said it had interviewed 15 witnesses immediately after both the alleged rape and killing of the boy and his father.
It said a nurse who examined the girl found medical evidence consistent with sexual assault.
"The girl had been hiding in a bathroom during a house search at approximately 2am on August 2. A man allegedly wearing the blue helmet and vest of the UN peacekeeping forces took her outside and raped her behind a truck," Amnesty said in a statement.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP,
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