NEW YORK: Three Burundian peacekeepers have been killed by "unidentified armed combatants" in the Central African Republic, the United Nations said Friday.
The announcement came after a rebel coalition fighting the government called off a ceasefire ahead of a tense general election due to take place Sunday.
"Three peacekeepers from Burundi were killed and two others were wounded" following attacks on UN troops and Central African national defense and security forces, the UN said in a statement.
The assaults took place in Dekoa, central Kemo Prefecture, and in Bakouma, in the southern Mbomou Prefecture, it said, without providing further details.
Sunday's elections are deemed a key test of CAR's ability to recover stability.
In the week before voting day, incumbent President Faustin Archange Touadera accused his predecessor Francois Bozize of plotting a coup, a militia briefly seized the country's fourth biggest town, and Russia and Rwanda sent military personnel to help shore up his government.
Mineral-rich but rated the world's second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, the CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago.