Six people were killed and several others injured overnight in the capital of the Central African Republic during clashes between soldiers and civilians, a paramilitary police source told AFP Monday.

"Two soldiers from the presidential guard who were visibly drunk (...) opened fire on a crowd attracted by the incident, killing six people, including a student and a young girl," the gendarmerie source said.

The two soldiers "wanted the company of a young woman and demanded that she follow them. But she refused to be taken away by the soldiers, who didn't want to leave her. A gendarme intervened to free her," the source added.

This clash took place four days after another at PK12 (Kilometre 12) on the northern outskirts of Bangui, involving another soldier from the presidential guard who fatally stabbed a civilian before using a grenade which killed both himself and a gendarme.

PK12 is a densely populated working-class area where there are many bars and restaurants and the crime rate is high. At the beginning of September, a soldier and two civilians were killed in a clash between Peul stockbreeders and troops.

In August, also in northern Bangui, an officer of the presidential guard killed a young girl selling food when he opened fire on a crowd while residents were asking for his help to carry the body of a man killed in a hold-up.