Rwanda said on Wednesday it would send some 800 troops to the Central African Republic next week, as part of an African Union (AU) force to help restore security.

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told local radio: "Our troops will arrive in CAR in about ten days. AU asked us for a battalion which is about 800 soldiers."

EU nations are considering a joint military operation in Central Africa amid looming fears of civilian massacres, but there may be little appetite for boots on the ground, experts said Wednesday.

Ambassadors to the European Union will be asked Friday whether or not to approve the rapid deployment of a European force of several hundred troops to help African and French peacekeepers already on the ground to restore security, said an EU official speaking on condition of anonymity.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tuesday there is currently no need to send reinforcements to Central Africa, where it has 1,600 deployed troops to help defuse sectarian violence.

"Given the current state of things, there are no particular reasons to send reinforcements" to Bangui, Le Drian said while visiting an airbase in southern France.

Chad's President Idriss Déby Itno on Friday vowed that attacks on Chadian nationals in the restive Central African Republic would not go "unpunished".

While visiting families repatriated to Ndjamena, Deby said that "attacking women and children, and targeting Chadians, assassinating, killing them is intolerable," according to an Agence France Presse correspondent at the scene.

The number of people uprooted by conflict in the Central African Republic is nearing one million, with half of the residents of the capital Bangui driven from their homes, the United Nations said Friday.

"The humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic remains dire, as insecurity is making the delivery of humanitarian relief ever more difficult and as the number of people displaced within the country has now surpassed 935,000," said Babar Baloch, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

France's military mission in the Central African Republic will not suck in its troops in an expanding role, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian vowed Thursday during a visit to the restive country's capital.

Le Drian predicted last month's deployment of 1,600 French soldiers to the former French colony to help an African force there would prove as successful as France's mission launched nearly a year ago in Mali, where an Islamist guerrilla advance was halted.

Francois Bozize, the former Central African leader, denied backing Christian militias that have wreaked havoc in the country and called on the current president who deposed him to resign in an interview broadcast Thursday.

The Central African Republic has plunged into chaos since mainly Muslim Seleka rebels staged a coup in March, prompting French forces to intervene last month after hundreds died in violence pitting the former rebels against Christian militias known as the anti-balaka (anti-machete).

At least two children have been beheaded in the fighting which has gripped the Central African Republic, the U.N. agency for children said Monday, adding "unprecedented" levels of violence were being committed against youngsters.

UNICEF said that of the two children beheaded, one had also been mutilated.

Hundreds of Chadian civilians prepared Saturday to flee to their home country after facing repeated attacks and threats from majority Christians in the strife-torn Central African Republic.

The Chadians were seen piling into a convoy of several dozen cars and taxis in the capital Bangui under the taunts of angry residents looking on.

The United Nations said Friday it would speed up planning for a possible U.N. peacekeeping force in Central African Republic, where deadly strife is spreading.

Consultations with the Security Council and the African Union "will be expeditiously undertaken" in coming days, it said, after talks between U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon and French President Francois Hollande.