Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
EBAM, Cameroon—Ella* and Béatrice*—both 16—returned from visiting a friend earlier this year to discover that their homes were on fire.
Friends and neighbors, who had lost almost everything, were wailing uncontrollably as their whole compound in the Central African Republic village of Aïgbado was engulfed in flames.
It was Jan. 16, the day of an infamous massacre—first reported by The Daily Beast—when Putin’s private army slaughtered more than 70 people in eastern CAR, setting homes ablaze and leaving hundreds homeless near a gold mine outside Aïgbado.