In 2013, the Central African Republic was plunged into a conflict that has cost over 5,000 lives and displaced more than a million people.

When the insurgent group Seleka seized power in a bloody coup d’état, Seleka rebels were dispatched to the country’s rainforests. Here they struck lucrative deals with logging companies that helped bankroll a fierce campaign of violence against the country’s population.

This investigation, Blood Timber, reveals how these logging companies have paid millions of euros into the hands of rebels guilty of mass murder, kidnappings, rapes and the forced recruitment of child soldiers.

Global Witness is calling on the EU and its member states to cut all trade and aid links to CAR’s logging industry, which continues to be a source of instability as the African country struggles to restore peace.