REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BOSSANGOA -- French peacekeeping troops have arrived in the Central African Republic town of Bossangoa, but houses still burn and weapons remain rife as sectarian resentment simmers.

"We are on maximum alert," a humanitarian aid worker told AFP this week in the key town, one of the most badly affected by the Christian-Muslim violence that has swept the country.

Panic has spread among residents because of two rumours of massacres in the region. French forces, African troops and relief agencies also say they have received reports of a large attack planned by Christian militias against Muslims.

On Wednesday, a French patrol bumped into a group of armed men from Seleka -- the officially disbanded, mostly Muslim rebel group that overthrew the government in March and installed its leader, Michel Djotodia, as president.

The French troops disarmed the men and put their Kalashnikovs in storage with between 100 and 200 other weapons seized over a fortnight in the region, said French military sources.

In a night raid on a house, French soldiers also seized jerrycans of petrol, hours after a series of fires that razed straw huts in both Christian and Muslim districts of the city.

"Tensions are getting higher from day to day," said a relief worker.

Aid workers were all the more watchful after getting alarming news from Paoua, 150 kilometres (90 miles) away, where Seleka forces opened fire with assault rifles and rocket launchers and Christian militias warned of reprisals.

Nobody was reported killed or wounded. The gunfire followed a failed bid to broker peace between the people of the small town near the Chadian border and the "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) militias formed by Christians to fight Muslims.

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