How I was captured by Wagner mercenaries: The tale of a tourist in the Central African Republic — Part 2
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Introduction
The following is the story of my adventure in the Central African Republic, from the happy, touristic part, to the not-so-happy part where I was taken into custody by Wagner soldiers and ended up arrested by the Central African authorities.
This is what happens when an experienced traveler gets a little bit too arrogant, traveling in war zones is not a joke.
This part is about my failed atempt to reach Chad from Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (in short CAR), and my subsequent adventure with Wagner militias and Central African forces in general.
You might want to read the first part as well, about the logistics of crossing from Cameroon to CAR and getting to Bangui visiting also the wonderful Dzanga Sangha National Park
If you want to contact me or see the stories of all of my adventures around the world follow me on Instagram: @nico.cpp
Introduction about Wagner and what they do in CAR
Wagner is a Russian state-funded private military company, they have become more popular in recent years for their violent role in the war in Ukraine and then for the coup attempt and death of their founder and former leader Evgenij Prigožin.
However, they have been very active in Africa even before the war in Ukraine began, with the Central African Republic historically being their main theater of war in Africa. In 2018 CAR’s president Touadéra needed to call someone to try to fight the rebels who managed to overtake most of the country, Wagner accepted to help and in exchange, they took control of many diamond and gold mines around the country.
There are countless reports of abuses, looting, arbitrary killings, and violations of human rights in general, perpetrated by those Russian mercenaries. Among many that you can find online, I want to report that on July 30, 2018, three Russian journalists were shot to death and their bodies left on the side of a road near a conflict zone: they were investigating the activities of Wagner in the country, just remember that.
However, in fairness, I can’t deny that everybody I’ve met in CAR from every possible faction and role had to admit that Wagner actually managed to fight the rebels and improve the overall situation of the country, even if the civil war is still far from being over, the country is now controlled by the central government at least in most of the important areas.
Road to Chad — The beginning of the end
The plan was fairly easy: to leave Bangui to go to Bossangoa, and then reach the border with Chad. I got my Chadian visa at the Embassy of Chad in Bangui. When I applied they asked for flight tickets, and when I replied that I was planning to go by land they said “Ok no problem, then you don’t need the tickets”.
The chief of the priests at the Catholic mission in Bangui was from Bossangoa, and he told me that the road to get there was safe and I could easily find a vehicle to go there from the PK12 neighborhood in Bangui. He also said that maybe I would even be lucky enough to find transport to Chad once in Bossangoa.
So, I showed up early in the morning in PK12. There was a guy helping people to find transportation for a small tip, and he said he could find a good off-road vehicle for me to get there. In 30 minutes a brand new Nissan Patrol showed up ready to bring me to Bossangoa for 20.000 CFA. But, to my surprise, it was a UN car! This Central African UN driver was transporting stuff to Bossangoa and he was stopping in PK12 to sell the empty seats to random people. I think something like this could happen only in CAR.
The ride was great. I sat in the front seat, we had AC and the driver let me play my music on the stereo of the car. Sometimes we stopped along the road to buy stuff at the villages and I felt very cool stepping out from a UN car. The driver was friendly and told me he was saving money to go on holiday in France. I guess his extra job as a public transport driver was going to finance that objective.
Remember this detail because it will be very important to understand what happened later: Since we were riding in a UN car, of course, we were not checked at any checkpoint, and I found it great because they were usually asking me for a “fee” of 2–4.000 CFA — one crazy policeman in Nola even asked me for 20.000 CFA — and I always had to argue to avoid to pay. The driver left me at the Catholic guest house of Bossangoa where I slept for 7.000 CFA. It was not a very good accommodation but there were not many other options in Bossangoa.
Transport to Chad
The driver, who could speak English pretty well, told me to call him in the morning so he could help me reach Chad.
When we met for breakfast he had already asked around and, of course, there was no real transport to get there. The only way was to take a moto-taxi for almost 200 km. He found one for me with a brand new motorbike, but it was very expensive at 100.000 CFA. In the end, I accepted because he was going to cross the border with me and drop me at Gorè — the first Chadian city after the border — and also because his bike was just 4 months old. I didn’t want to have the number of troubles I had previously experienced going around CAR on broken motorbikes.
The ride was good, even too good. The road was not paved but it was decent, and we didn’t cross a single checkpoint for almost 100 km. I suspect my driver knew how to skip them. I was so happy — I was going to be probably the first person to cross the CAR-Chad border since the beginning of the war 10 years ago.
The infamous checkpoint of Boguilla — It’s over
Just 70 km before the border with Chad I was stopped for the first time since I left Bangui, over 400km before. When I tried to explain to the local Gendarmerie that I was there for tourism they really didn’t like it. It was a much more tense situation compared to the at least 10 checkpoints I had crossed in the west of the country.
They took me to the local police station and checked all of my belongings and one young soldier who could speak some English kept telling me stupid things like that I couldn’t have more than one currency with me (I was keeping a few notes from like 15 countries I’ve visited before as a souvenir), or that the hat I had in my backpack was not permitted because it had a military pattern.
They made a very dumb interrogation with very dumb questions. They asked why I had so many stamps on my passport, and again, tourism didn’t seem to be an acceptable answer. They also asked me why my Chadian visa was issued the same day if I said I left Bangui the day before, I tried to explain to them that the Chadian embassy kindly wrote the date of my presumed crossing into Chad as the first day of validity of the visa, and that was not the issue date, they couldn’t understand it. They took custody of my passport.
They kept asking me for proof that I was a tourist. I had nothing to prove this besides my pics in Dzanga Sangha, and nobody had asked me anything like that before.
They took a mugshot of me and asked me to wait. They said they needed to talk with their superiors in Bossanoga, who, of course, didn’t know I crossed their city because of the UN ride, this probably raised even more suspicion.
While waiting a very drunk soldier approached me and told me that he noticed I had a bottle of Gin in my backpack, and he wanted it. I kept saying no he kept saying it was an order. I asked for help from the other soldiers but they just replied: “He is a soldier as well”. I didn’t give the bottle to him, not because that bottle was important to me, but because it would be a mistake to show them that they could easily take something from you.
I was already in contact with the Honorary Consul of Italy in Chad, I was asking him a few things about the tourism regulations in the country. I was afraid they were going to refuse to let me cross at a border so far from the capital since in Chad you are supposed to get a tourist permit in N’Djamena — the capital — that allows you to go around the country. The answer was that I should be allowed to cross and stay on the shortest route to reach the capital. However, I never had a chance to check that since they stopped me before the border. Other people crossed into Chad from Cameroon and then drove for 200km to reach the capital without problems, so I guess it is possible, with luck.
The Italian Consul kept checking on me because I was supposed to cross that day, and when the sun started to come down, and the Gendarmerie told me that they were now waiting for an answer from Bangui, the Consul told me that he was going to report this situation to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who takes care of the safety of the Italians abroad.
Right after this conversation with the Consul the boss of the Gendarmerie decided to take my phone, he said he would give it back to me the next day.
During the night I shared my bottle of gin with some low-ranking soldiers who were sleeping at the military post and tried not to think about the horrible situation I was living in. I had absolutely no idea what was coming next, and the only thing I could do was wait and try to keep calm. My driver was allowed to sleep in a local sort of guesthouse but I had to sleep on the floor at the military post. Thank God I had a mat with me.
After sunset, I heard very loud music that went on for a few hours. The village had no electricity at all, even at the military post, so someone must have been burning fuel in a generator just to dance in the night. Even in such a remote and poor village they just can’t live without music.
During the night the boss of the Gendarmerie came back and woke me up with his flashlight. He demanded to take my bag for the night and I said no problem but the money inside (around €300) had to stay with me, he didn’t agree. There was no reason to take my money “for the night” and I was not willing to give up. In these situations it can be handy to lose control if you do it on purpose, so I faked a really heavy panic attack where I was not able to even breathe, I also tried my best to throw up and cover him in vomit but my stomach was empty. This show grabbed the attention of all of the soldiers who came to check what was going on and, in the end, the bad guy left the building without saying a single word.
Second day of captivity
The next morning I got my phone back, but unfortunately, there was no signal. The same horrible boss of the gendarmerie told me that he was going to free me but I had to give him all of my money, I replied that I preferred to sleep on the floor of their building for the rest of my life than try to leave this remote village of the poorest country of the world with no money. He didn’t reply at all and left the building again.
It was around 8 am when sitting just outside the military post, I saw at least 15 white soldiers approaching me. They wore camouflage uniforms and were heavily armed. I was already pretty sure that they were not UN soldiers because they were not wearing blue helmets but when they came closer I saw their caps with the red skull motif. It was Wagner.
I can’t describe what I felt at that moment, most of the people in Africa who are coming from countries where there is a presence of Wagner told me “If they see you they just shoot you”. So I was pretty afraid that they were just going to declare me a spy and kill me on the spot. On the other hand, the situation was so absurd that I just couldn’t believe it, like I was afraid because the rational part of my brain was telling me that I was in danger, but I did not feel afraid.
They entered the building and asked me to sit down, they were all very big but the biggest one asked me to give him my phone, he was like the Gigachad but with a military uniform and an assault rifle. At least I saw some sort of Chad.
He briefly checked my gallery and asked the boss of the gendarmerie to give him my passport, just some of them could at least barely speak English or French and they explained to me we were all going together back to Bossangoa for a “check”.
I followed them with my bike driver and while we were walking they asked me if I knew Wagner. I replied something like “Ehmm ye…yess”.
We reached a place where there was a 6x6 APC and a military car waiting for us. They asked us to jump on the APC.
My bike driver suddenly broke into tears and, of course, the Wagner soldiers mocked him because “a man shouldn’t cry”. I was a bit afraid that he was crying because he knew something that I didn’t know, but we discovered that it was because we were leaving behind his motorbike, probably that motorbike is everything he owns. They allowed him to follow us on the backseat of his motorbike with a Wagner soldier driving.
I have to say that throughout the trip, they tried their best to keep me calm and were friendly, offering soft drinks, snacks, and even a Chupa Chups, which in retrospect I find quite hilarious. Despite our language barriers — my limited Russian and French and their broken English and French — they explained to me that they were my friends and assured me everything would be fine. On one hand I was relieved that they were not violent but friendly with me, on the other side I thought that those were just low-ranking soldiers and they wanted to keep me calm before bringing me to the hands of their bosses.
We stopped in a Wagner base on the road to Bossangoa but I was not allowed to leave the APC. Every few minutes a soldier would come to say hello and often give me a snack, and one who could speak English mocked me in a friendly way:
“You were going to Chad on a moto-taxi? ahahah”
In 30 minutes or so we left the base with just the APC and the motorbike, and after a few hours we reached the police station of Bossangoa.
In Bossangoa I was allowed to have my phone back and finally, I had internet. There is no Italian Embassy in CAR, the nearest competent one is in Cameroon, and the Italian Ambassador there had sent me a message. He told me that I had crossed an active war-zone, where I was not allowed to go, and that he was doing his best to resolve the situation.
Dimitri enters the scene
After 30 minutes 2 Wagner soldiers came to greet me. They were not wearing a real uniform but Wagner-branded civilian clothes, and they carried underarm pistols.
One I believe was the boss and could speak only Russian, and the other one was also fluent in French and English. We will call the latter Dimitry, even if probably the name he used to introduce himself to me is fake as well. Dimitry asked me to follow him to the office of the police.
He was very professional and calm, first thing he said that I shouldn’t be nervous and that they were there just for my safety and the safety of the country. The boss was asking many questions in Russian and Dimitri was translating for me. Besides the usual questions about what I was doing there they asked me if I ever worked for any militia or military organization and if I had any tattoos or scars made by gunshots. They even asked me to take out my t-shirt and pants to check those things.
Then Dimitri informed me that they had to check my phone and my belongings and clone all of the files on my laptop. All of this seemed like a good deal to me compared to what I was afraid would happen with Wagner.
While the boss was checking my phone he noticed some screenshots I had taken of CAR newspapers about the abuses of Wagner against the local civil population. I was really afraid that they were going to freak out. The boss was laughing while hearing the translation of those articles, while Dimitry was a mix of embarrassed and sorry, he said something like:
“Despite what you read online we are not evil, we are here to keep security and safety, every kind of safety, including your safety”
When they left the local police wanted to interrogate me again, they had an interpreter who could barely speak English and it was very boring to repeat everything again. When Dimitry was back they forced him to read the notes of the interrogation they just made, he looked at me in a way that it was clear that he was not interested at all.
After all this we jumped in a civilian armored car. The armor had evidently actively been doing its job there because the windows were pretty cracked on the outside. We reached the Wagner base in Bossangoa where they took my phone again and I was allowed to eat some food and have a shower. They served me chicken soup and it was delicious, but maybe that’s because I had had no real food for more than a day.
Dimitri disappeared for a couple of hours and I was left in the company of 2 young Wagner soldiers. They were around 20 years old and they weren’t big like the soldiers who had given me the ride to Bossangoa, they looked like pretty normal young guys, even a bit nerdy. They served me some coffee and tried to talk with me in very poor English, when Dimitry arrived to take me I greeted them and they replied something like:
“You see, coffee and good company, Wagner is good”
Talking with Dimitry
Dimitry asked me to follow him while they were getting ready to bring me to Bangui. I noticed that they were preparing the same 6x6 APC with 10 soldiers onboard to bring me there, I just felt that I could take some confidence with him, so I asked:
“Are you making this big and expensive logistic hassle just for me?”
He replied:
“Yes, that’s just for you, it’s our duty to take care of your safety”
Then we took a seat at a table with another Wagner soldier who offered us some food, he had a long beard and I noticed a copy of the Holy Quran close to him, so I guess he could have been a Russian Muslim maybe from Chechnya.
Dimitry asked me if everything was fine with the Wagner soldiers I met so far, I replied:
“They were all very friendly and I was really not expecting that, when I saw them coming towards me with their uniform with red skulls I though they were going to kill me”
Dimitry was again a bit embarrassed by my comment and he replied something like:
“You know, I understand why you were scared, Wagner is involved in many conflicts around the world and they say many things about us, but i want you to know that here in the Central African Republic we are just for peace and security.”
I believe that this was his way of acknowledging to me that there is a good reason why Wagner has such a bad image, of course, he couldn’t say it clearly. I’ll discuss my theories about why Wagner has been kind to me at the end of this article.
The Wagner Express to Bangui
I jumped on the APC with the other soldiers and it was time to say hello to Dimitry, I don’t know if he had clear orders from the top to be kind to me or whatever, but I really can’t imagine him as a bad person, he left me his local number and told me to call him if I had problems.
On the APC I found some of the same soldiers of the previous ride plus a soldier of the Central African Army (FACA) and one member of the local gendarmerie, as I often felt Wagner didn’t have a lot of consideration for the local authorities, they checked if they had the safety engaged on their rifles and they didn’t allow them to use their old cellular phones while they were themself playing with their smartphones for the entire ride.
The ride was very long but pretty chill, i chatted a bit with one Wagner soldier who could speak some English and was very talkative, he showed me the pics of the lady he was going to marry once back in Russia. He also added that they were happy that they were going to be around for a few days because of me, since they have been constantly fighting for 5 months, this was like a holiday for them.
They also tried to talk with me about Russian culture and when they were introducing topics like Putin or Ukraine I tried to divert the discussion on cool Russian stuff that we could agree on, like Yuri Gagarin or borsch and vodka.
In the middle of the night, we stopped by some commercial trucks that were resting, some soldiers came out and came back full of snacks, soft drinks, and other stuff I don’t believe they paid for.
At 4 AM the boss of the vehicle who was sitting in the front moved to the back, close to me, to rest a bit. He was the only middle-aged man of the team and he didn’t look very friendly. We arrived in Bangui at 6 AM and when I left the vehicle to be taken into custody by the local police, that boss shook my hand and wished me good luck, I replied spasiba (thanks in Russian) and he was positively surprised that I could say something in his language, I don’t know why I didn’t like this man by instinct but his handshake reassured me, and for the first time, I was sure that those people just had the mission to give a safe ride to a civilian.
From his “good luck” I also understood that my adventure was probably far from being over. Before leaving for Bangui Dimitry told me that I was clean for Wagner however the local authorities were not of the same opinion, and that’s why the local Gendarmerie and Army were also escorting me along with the Wagner soldiers.
Now I really want to explain how I got out of this situation but I also have to keep some discretion, many many people were involved in my case and I still don’t know exactly the role of some of them and the details of what was going on “behind the scenes” are still mostly obscure for me. What I know for sure is that my country took care of me in the best possible way, myself and my family have been constantly in touch with the competent Italian authorities and we never felt abandoned even for a second.
If you were involved in my case and you believe I have to redact something I’m sure you know how to contact me.
Captivity in Bangui
Once in Bangui I was detained in a police station in the city center, I believe thanks to the fact that Italian diplomats were already working for me I was not detained in a real cell but in a room of the police office, I was allowed to keep my phone, and receive visits and food from outside pretty much h24, I was sleeping on my mat on the floor and outside of working hours I was pretty much on my own.
The first visit I received was from the local Italian consul who acted as my lawyer during the first interrogation of the morning: a 22-year-old kid of the local Gendarmerie asking for 4th time the full story of what I was doing in CAR. The average questions were like:
“If you are here for tourism why you didn’t declare that your job is tourist?”
When he asked me why I wanted to visit Dzanga Sangha National Park I explained that I was interested in seeing the elephants, the gorillas, and the pygmies, and he replied:
“That’s not enough, that’s not a good reason”.
Central African police tested the limits of my patience during my experience there.
The second visit of the day was from some amazing Italian ladies who are working in CAR, they asked me, again, what I was doing there and told me that everybody was surprised that I managed to get so far in the country just with random transportation and many people, including themself, thought that I parachuted myself in the wrong place. They also needed a second or two to understand that I was, for real, a tourist. They explained to me that my case was Presidential and that:
“Top Italian and Central African authorities, are informed about your situation.”
Those friendly ladies brought me some good food and visited me daily.
Another friendly daily visit I had was from a well-dressed African “correspondent of the Italian Government”, he was coming every day with some food, taking a picture with me and then giving me his phone, on the other side of the line there was an Italian man who was just asking if I was fine.
Road to Freedom
I have been under the custody of the Central African Gendarmerie for four days in total, diplomats, NGOs, priests, and nuns visited me and took care of me for the entire time.
Every day it seemed that I was close to being free but there was always a problem, one day there was no electricity to send my file to the prosecutor so he couldn’t review my case, another day once the prosecutor was ready to receive me the police car had a breakdown while we were on the road so we arrived late and he was already out of office.
When I finally had the opportunity to meet him, we had a pretty chill meeting, he asked me, in good English, if I knew something about the mafia in Italy, and then he proceeded to tell me the story of when he went to Sicily to have a meeting with the local anti-mafia prosecutor.
About my case, he just said that I had to leave the country, so he gaved the gendarmerie an official paper “message porteur” where it was written that I had to go to the immigration police to show that I had the flight tickets to fly out as soon as possible, so they could give my passport to the Italian diplomats who were going to take me under custody and drive me to the airport. Sounds easy right?
Once at the immigration Police, the director of the office freaked out, he started to say that I committed many immigration crimes, that now it was his turn to investigate my case, and that I was going to jail till the end of this procedure. He added that I entered the country illegally, I showed him multiple times my regular visa and entry stamp on my passport but he was just not caring at all, he just smelled an opportunity to enforce his authority to a rich European and probably get some money from me.
30 Minutes passed and in his office there was every single person in Central Africa who was working on my case, including the well-dressed guy who was taking pics with me. They told me to cooperate with his stupid investigation (this was the 5th interrogation of the week) while they were finding a way to take me out.
After one hour a police car came to take me, he drove me to the office of a very high-ranking Central African official who handed my passport to the Italian diplomats and wished me good luck.
I don’t know which strings they managed to pull to take me out at the end, but trust me, I’m pretty sure they were very important ones.
My last day in Bangui, as a free man
I have very nice memories of my last 24 hours in Bangui, I was under the custody of amazing Italians who hosted me and allowed me the pleasure of the first real shower and proper bed of the week.
I had a friendly meeting with an investigation department of the MINUSCA mission who wanted to know about the “ride” the UN gaved me to Bossangoa.
I also had a very interesting meeting with a high-rank diplomat of the French embassy, who later wrote me:
“Try next time Bayreuth to enjoy a Wagner’s opera, should be more impressive than the philharmonic of Bossangoa”.
French humor.
We also found time to visit some humanitarian projects managed by Italians in Bangui, I was impressed by the Dream Project, offering good and free healthcare to hundreds of people in Bangui. Consider also a donation to them, they are doing an incredible job.
Conclusions
What I’ve done wrong?
Probably not that much, considering that I’ve never been prosecuted for any felony, I ended up where I was not supposed to go mainly because of that UN ride, without that I would have been probably sent back to Bangui after the first checkpoint while driving north, avoiding a lot of drama. Probably also the Central African authorities wanted to show that Wagner was not the only force who had some power in the country so they had to “play” with me when I was done with Wagner. I’m sure they also wanted to keep me in custody for a while to give me a lesson to grow up as a man and other BS like that.
For sure I knew that what I was doing was very on the edge and I knew that in a country like CAR, something like that could happen, it is part of a game I decided to play and I have been fine with my destiny for the entire time.
Why Wagner was so kind to me?
This has been the most asked question so far, people in CAR mostly told me the same thing: “They sent you the good ones”. I’m not sure if I agree, the Wagners who traveled with me in the APC were full-fledged soldiers who were fighting daily.
My guess is that Wagner has a very specific agenda about improving their reputation in Africa, that’s also why they are rebranding themselves from Wagner to Africa Corps.
Perhaps they believe I might have a big social presence (which I don’t have) so they thought it could have been a good idea to have the Western influencer posting on social media: “By the way Wagner has been very nice to me”.
I don’t think they needed to send the “good ones” to do so, they are still soldiers after all, and they must have some kind of discipline, probably the order was also to take care of a civilian and that’s what they were doing.
In fairness, after speaking with many people in Africa, I believe that at least a significant portion of the terrible things reported about Wagner are true. A nun in Bangui told me about an incident where, while driving outside the city, she was stopped by Wagner because she didn’t yield to their vehicle (not realizing it was associated with Wagner). They pointed a gun at her head and threatened her for a while
At the same time I really can’t imagine a nice guy like Dimitry committing abuses on the population, i guess I will stay with this doubt forever.
Thanks for reading my story, and remember to follow me on Instagram: @nico.cpp
