British Foreign Secretary William Hague stated that British military will assist the deployment of French military equipment to the Central African Republic, with one of the first flights arriving "shortly" on Bangui.
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At start of the two-day summit in Paris, French President François Hollande, at the funeral for former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela, was horrified by the dramatic situation in Bangui, he announced that the French military presence in the CAR would double to include 1,200 troops, immediately, possibly within hours.