ANKARA
France's Defense Ministry has said it will impose the "strongest penalties" against any French soldiers who committed child sex abuse offences in the Central African Republic.
The Defense Ministry's statement came on Thursday a day after United Nations spokesperson Farhan Haq confirmed the UN had launched an investigation into allegations of child sex abuse committed by French soldiers in CAR between December 2013 and June 2014.
The ministry said in a statement that France had been informed of the accusations made by children, who said they had been sexually abused by French troops, on July 29, 2014 by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The ministry said, at the time, it "asked the Paris prosecutor's office to immediately open a preliminary investigation".
The abuse is alleged to have been committed on more than a dozen of children at the M'Poko airport in the CAR capital of Bangui, the statement read.
Senior United Nations aid worker Anders Kompass was suspended last week after he disclosed an internal report to French prosecutors which alleged children as young as nine were sexually abused by French troops stationed as peacekeepers in the CAR, according to UK daily The Guardian.
Geneva-based Kompass, who is reported to have leaked the report over what he claimed was a failure by the UN to take action, faces dismissal after being accused of breaching protocols and leaking the confidential UN material.
France deployed 1,600 soldiers to restore peace in the Central African Republic - its former colony under a UN mandate - in 2013.
