The Central African Republic (CAR) has struggled to emerge from conflict and state collapse since 2013, when a rebel movement known as the Seleka seized control of the government. Seleka was led by Muslim combatants with ties to CAR's northeastern border region. "Anti-balaka" ("anti- machete" or "anti-bullet") militias were formed in response and fought the Seleka and Muslims in general. The ensuing conflict featured widespread violence against civilians and the disintegration of already weak institutions. Violence has waned since 2013-2014, but periodic flare-ups continue to undermine social cohesion, government stability, and the return of displaced populations. CAR has never had an effective central government exercising authority over its full national territory, and there have been recurrent insurgencies and army mutinies since the 1990s. In early 2016, CAR completed national elections and a transition from an interim government that had led the country since 2014. Faustin Archange Touadéra, a former prime minister who had cultivated a discreet public profile, was elected president. His inauguration marked CAR's second democratic transfer of power since independence from France in 1960, and the convening of a new National Assembly in May 2016 formally brought the political transition period to a close. Donors are now attempting to support the new government while balancing policy concerns (such as ties between the military and anti-balaka groups) and competing global demands for humanitarian and peacekeeping resources. As during past crises in CAR, international forces have deployed since 2013 in an effort to stabilize the country. The U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR (MINUSCA), established in 2014, absorbed a previous African-led military force. MINUSCA is mandated to protect civilians, support reconciliation and the extension of state authority, assist security sector reform efforts, facilitate humanitarian aid, and in some situations implement "urgent temporary measures ... to arrest and detain in order to maintain basic law and order and fight impunity." Starting in late 2013, France deployed Operation Sangaris to disarm militias and secure the capital, Bangui. The mission, with over 2,000 troops at its peak, ended in October 2016, but France is expected to maintain a rapid-reaction force and security cooperation program. The European Union (EU) deployed some 750 soldiers to help secure Bangui in 2014-2015, and subsequently established a military advisory mission ("EUMAM") to support reforms. CAR remains fragile, and President Touadéra has been slow to advance initiatives that could bring greater stability. State institutions remain absent from much of the country. Much of CAR's minority Muslim community has fled to the northeast or to neighboring countries. The Seleka movement has split into factions that have fought each other—and targeted civilians from ethnic communities associated with rival factions. All parties, including the military, have reportedly engaged in racketeering and extortion in their areas of influence. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a small but brutal Ugandan-led militia, is active in the east, where it appears to have benefitted from CAR's recent instability. Domestic opposition to MINUSCA has been stoked by the mission's lack of capacity, by scandals involving alleged sexual abuse and exploitation by foreign troops, and by self-interested efforts by nativist politicians and activists. U.N. agencies estimate that some 450,000 Central Africans are refugees in neighboring countries (compared to 152,500 as of mid-2012), while 385,000 are internally displaced—out of a total pre-conflict population of roughly 5 million. Militia attacks on aid personnel have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, in which some 2.4 million residents are reportedly in need of assistance. Economic activity has moderately improved since 2015, but real gross domestic product (GDP) remains below pre-conflict levels, and continued violence threatens to reverse limited gains. CAR was already one of the world's poorest countries before the conflict, and it ranked 187 out of 188 countries on the 2015 U.N. Human Development Index. U.S. and other international policymakers are currently considering a range of questions regarding the response to the situation in CAR, including: To what extent should donors transition from emergency humanitarian assistance toward development aid for CAR? What level of support is appropriate? Who should plan and fund the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants? Which fighters should be eligible for either integration into the military or assistance with establishing civilian livelihoods? With the end of France's Operation Sangaris, to what extent should other international troops be prepared to fend off a renewed rebel assault on Bangui? How should the U.N. Security Council respond to the CAR government's repeated requests to lift a U.N. arms embargo so as to allow the CAR military (known as the FACA, after its French acronym) to rearm? Given reported links between elements of the FACA and anti-balaka groups, should an end to the embargo be conditioned on requirements for human rights vetting and ethnic/religious balance? (See " Context ," below.) To what extent should U.S. military advisors, who are in CAR to help counter the LRA, work with the FACA—particularly if the primary U.S. partner in counter-LRA operations, the Ugandan military, withdraws in the coming months? (See " Lord's Resistance Army Presence ," below.) Should targeted sanctions designations be expanded or otherwise revised, and for what purposes? (See " U.S. Policy and Aid ," below.) How, if at all, should U.N. Security Council members adjust MINUSCA's mandate in response to changing political and security conditions? What can or should U.N. member states do to improve MINUSCA's effectiveness and commitment to protecting civilians from violence? To improve U.N. efforts to prevent and punish sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in CAR? (See " MINUSCA: Current Issues ," below.) How should donors balance a desire to support the Touadéra administration with concerns about its ties to sanctioned individuals such as ex-president Bozizé? (See " A New Government: Prospects and Challenges ," below.) How should the CAR government and its international partners respond to recent efforts by some ex-Seleka leaders to reunite the movement? What steps should the CAR government and its international partners take to encourage the return of displaced populations? To what extent should donors work to build up CAR's civilian security forces, such as police and corrections officers? What is the appropriate level of donor support for reconciliation and accountability measures, including a nascent Special Criminal Court designed to prosecute the gravest crimes since 2003? Should stakeholders support new Kimberley Process designations of areas from which diamond exports are cleared to resume? (See " The Economy ," below.) The contours of the conflict in CAR reflect complex tensions over access to resources, control over trade and financial networks, and national identity. Prior to the conflict, CAR's population was estimated to be 15% Muslim and 85% Christian or followers of indigenous beliefs. The Seleka ("alliance" in the local Sangho language) rebellion was founded in 2012 in northeastern CAR, and that region—home to many Muslim communities with cross-border ties to Chad and Sudan—remains the primary stronghold of ex-Seleka factions following the group's splintering in 2013-2014. At its inception, Seleka leaders appeared united by little other than a desire for power, looting, and revenge. Still, the movement drew on grassroots grievances among Muslims and northeasterners relating to perceived political exclusion, poor governance, and abuse under successive central administrations led by Christians from the south or northwest. For their part, the Christian- and animist-led anti-balaka groups that first organized in Bangui in late 2013, in response to the Seleka takeover, have drawn on popular anger at historic patterns of raiding (including slave-raids) by Muslims from the northeastern border area, and on frustrations with contemporary Muslim traders' prominence in commerce and the mineral sector. Politicization of religious identity rose under former President François Bozizé, who headed an evangelical church as president and has been implicated in supporting anti-balaka mobilization from exile. (Bozizé took power in a rebellion in 2003 and was deposed by the Seleka in 2013.) In a complex twist, Bozizé's reliance on Chadian combatants while in office may have further stoked nativist anger against residents with family ties to Chad, many of whom are Muslim. Although religious ideology does not appear to have been at the heart of the CAR conflict, one result of these tensions has been brutal collective punishment based on sectarian identity. In 2013, Seleka commanders oversaw attacks on Christian communities, including massacres in the northwest—Bozizé's home region and political stronghold. By mid-2014, after the Seleka had been pushed out of power and the national military had effectively disbanded, anti-balaka groups gained the upper hand in much of the south and west, where they launched assaults on Muslim communities in religiously mixed areas. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Muslims fled their homes, Muslim-owned properties and businesses were looted and seized, mosques were destroyed, and Muslim religious practice was reportedly forcibly suppressed, including through forced conversions. In mid-2014, thousands of Muslims who had been forcibly confined to enclaves under international protection were evacuated, with international assistance, to the northeast or to neighboring countries. A U.N. commission of inquiry concluded that abuses by anti-balaka groups amounted to "ethnic cleansing" of CAR's Muslim community.