French President Francois Hollande has arrived in curfew-bound Bangui, where two French soldiers were killed hours earlier during an operation to disarm rogue rebels.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Hollande flew to the Central African Republic capital from Johannesburg, where he had attended a memorial service for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.
The first losses of the French campaign to pacify its former colony underlined the risks involved in a complex mission to disarm fighters who have plunged the impoverished country into chaos.
The French leader took a moment to bow before the coffins of the two fallen soldiers.
Antoine Le Quinio, 22, and Nicolas Vokaer, 23, both members of a regiment based at Castres in southwestern France, died after a fierce firefight during a night patrol in Bangui, where bloody sectarian clashes left hundreds dead last week.
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France sent 1600 troops as part of a UN-backed intervention to end months of militia attacks and sectarian violence.
The Central African Republic has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis since the Muslim Seleka coalition rose up against the government in December and overthrew president Francois Bozize, a Christian, in March.
Violence has displaced more than 500,000 people in the nation of 4.5 million people, making them refugees in their own country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday.
In Bangui, the number of internally displaced people has climbed to 108,000 after clashes Thursday.
About 70,000 people have fled abroad, mostly to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.
