Christians fearing reprisal attacks from the Muslim ex-rebels who control Central African Republic fled on foot by the thousands Saturday, as others ventured outside for the first time in days only to bury their dead after the worst violence to rack the lawless country in months.

French armored personnel carriers and troops from the regional African peacekeeping mission roared at high speed down the roads of the capital, Bangui, as families carrying palm fronds pushed coffins in carts on the road's shoulder.

In a sign of the mounting tensions, others walking briskly on the streets carried bow-and-arrows and machetes.

Former colonizer France has deployed more than 1,000 troops in the country in an effort to stabilitze a crisis that the French foreign minister has warned is "on the verge of genocide."



The local Red Cross says it has gathered over 280 bodies in recent days, although the perilous security had made it impossible to access some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

Overnight, French reinforcements entered Central African Republic by road from Cameroon to the west as others ventured northward out of Bangui for the first time since the U.N. Security Council on Thursday authorized a more muscular international miliary role to quell the violence, said Col Gilles Jaron, a French military spokesman in Paris.

Aid workers ventured back out into the streets Saturday to collect bloated bodies that had lay uncollected in the heat since Thursday, when Christian fighters known as the anti-balaka who oppose the country's ruler descended on the capital in a coordinated attack on several mostly Muslim neighborhoods.

Residents of Christian neighborhoods said the (Muslim) ex-rebels known as Seleka later carried out reprisal attacks, going house-to-house in search of alleged combatants and firing at civilians who merely strayed into the wrong part of town.

Most of the displaced in Central African Republic's capital are Christian, as the ex-Seleka have not targeted Muslim neighborhoods. However, anger over Seleka attacks has prompted vicious reprisals on Muslim civilians in other parts of the country. Nearly a dozen Muslim women and children were slain less than a week ago just outside the capital in an attack blamed on Christian fighters.

Central African Republic, one of the world's poorest countries, has been wracked for decades by coups and rebellions. In March, the Muslim rebel alliance known as Seleka overthrew the Christian president of a decade. At the time, religious ideology played little role in their power grab. The rebels soon installed their leader, Michel Djotodia, as president, though he exerted little control over forces on the ground.

The rebels are blamed for scores of atrocities since taking power, tying civilians together and throwing them off bridges to drown and burning entire villages to the ground. Anger over the Seleka abuses translated into a backlash against Muslim civilians, who make up only about 15 percent of the population.

An armed Christian movement has arisen in response to the Seleka attacks, and it is widely believed to be supported by former members of the national army loyal to ousted President Francois Bozize.