Former C Africa leader returns after six-year exile

Former Central African Republic (CAR) rebel leader and president Michel Djotodia returned to Bangui on Friday, exactly six years after quitting as head of state, and pledged to support peace in the troubled country.

Djotodia, 71, who resigned 10 months after seizing the presidency at the head of a Muslim rebellion in March 2013, landed on board a Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca via Douala in Cameroon. He had been living in exile in Benin.

He was welcomed at a hotel in the capital by about 30 of his supporters and given a security escort by police and army personnel, an AFP reporter saw.

He was expected to meet later with President Faustin-Archange Touadera.

"2020 will be a year of peace. I am no longer a man of war, I am a man of peace," Djotodia told journalists.

"I urge all the rebels to be patient," Djotodia said separately in a brief interview with AFP.

"There is a peace agreement which has been signed. It is time for all of us, fighters and all Central Africans, to stand up to pacify the country."