I was captured by Wagner in Central African Republic AMA

Hoping that the kind mods have nothing against it, I’m linking the article that explains everything at the end of the post, anyway this is a summary of the story:

I have been traveling extensively in Africa for years and have basically visited half of the continent, I always travel overland with public transportation/hitchhiking or whatever I can find.

On my last trip to West Africa I thought a lot about whether or not to go to Central Africa. It has always fascinated me but I was also aware that it was a hot area even compared to the average for Africa.

So I decided to proceed with "caution": the plan was to cross the border between Cameroon and the Central African Republic, and stay near the border with Cameroon, and then see what the situation was and possibly go inland to reach the capital Bangui and then, maybe, the border with Chad.

The first two weeks of driving from the Cameroon-Central African Republic border to the capital Bangui went better than I expected, a few accidents along the way, some stretches of road escorted by the local army, a few corrupt checkpoints but all in all it went well.

Arriving in Bangui probably made me too confident, so I rushed to the Chadian embassy and got the visa.

Early in the morning I leave Bangui towards the border with Chad, I manage to hitch a ride with a United Nations car, which takes me 300km further north, to the city of Bossangoa about 200km from the border.
The fact that I was in a UN car was a good thing because I avoided all sorts of problems at the checkpoints, but a bad thing because by doing so I essentially entered an active war zone without anyone being able to stop me first.

The UN car then leaves me in Bossangoa, where I sleep and the next morning I find a motorbike taxi driver willing to take me to the first town after the border with Chad, we set off and about 70km from the border we are stopped by the police, who ask me what I’m doing there, when I tell them "turismo" they go crazy.

I get arrested and then spend the night at the police station in this remote village, in the morning I wake up and see about 10 white soldiers coming towards me, I see that they don’t have UN blue helmets so the only option left was Wagner.

For those who don’t know, in the Central African Republic there is a civil war that has been going on for 10 years, when the rebels began to take over the country the president didn’t know what to do and asked around for help, Wagener responded that she was happy to help fight the rebels and in exchange she received various concessions for the exploitation of gold and diamond mines.

I have already travelled to other places where Wagner is present, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso, and what is generally said about them is "if they see you they’ll shoot you"

So you can imagine when I saw them coming all armed with their red skull uniforms

It’s all explained well in the article but in short I spent a couple of days touring the country in their company traveling on their armored vehicles, I was interrogated by officers who spoke good English and who also seemed quite professional to me, when they understood that I wasn’t a spy and I wasn’t there with bad intentions they basically escorted me to the capital without making too much drama.

When I arrived in the capital they handed me over to the police who arrested me again and detained me for 5 days until the Italian diplomats (who thought I had parachuted up there) pulled me out and then I flew home to Italy.

A week later I went to Chad anyway, but by plane 😀

Prove:

Found via the article that explains everything in detail

Entry Visa to Central Africa, Entry Stamp to Central Africa/Exit Cameroon, Chad Visa Obtained in Bangui

Report of investigation by the United Nations MINUSCA mission on the ride their driver gave me leaving me in a war zone

OR!