Three days of national mourning have been announced by the president of the Central African Republic (CAR) after an attack on a church in Bangui that killed 16 Christian worshippers, and subsequent violence that has seen eight more killed and 170 injured. The Archbishop of Bangui condemned and lamented the ongoing sectarian violence in the country.

Sixteen were killed and many injured after gunmen attacked Notre Dame de Fatima church on Tuesday, in CAR's capital Bangui. The attackers launched grenades and gunfire on the congregation during its morning mass, killing sixteen congregants including a priest, Fr Albert Toungoumalé-Baba.

'Filled with panic, some Christians began to flee until bullets and grenades began to fall in the parish grounds, trapping those who remained in the compound,' Moses Aliou, a priest at the church, told Reuters.

Trapped congregants were forced to escape the area through a hole made in the church wall by police. Subsequent violence against both Christians and Muslims following that attack has brought this week's death toll to 24, with 170 injured, according to World Watch Monitor. 

On Thursday CAR's President Faustin-Archange Touadéra decreed three days of nationwide mourning, condemning the church attack but urging people not to see it as an inter-religious clash.

'The people must not be manipulated. There are people against peace. They will not pass,' he said. 'We will hunt down the perpetrators of this act.'

In a statement on Wednesday Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, archbishop of Bangui, lamented the violence and division.

'I appeal to everyone so that we can have restraint, so that we can also have the self-control, to avoid anger, to avoid hatred, revenge, reprisals,' he said.

'We have counted our dead, and we continue to count them. We have our injured, our disabled and we continue to count them. Let's stand up and block the road to the will of self-destruction.'

Sectarian conflict originally erupted in CAR in December 2012, when several rebel groups, mainly Muslim militants, formed a coalition known as Séléka and in 2013 overthrew CAR's then-president Francois Bozize. In retaliation, several 'anti-balaka' (meaning 'anti-machete') groups formed to combat the rebels. Some of these militias – predominantly comprising Christians – began attacking Muslims in revenge. Thousands have since been killed or displaced in the ensuing violence.

Nzapalainga added: 'For decades, what have we done with this country? Coups, mutinies, repeated rebellions. The result is before us: we have deaths, looting and destruction and the latest dramatic events remind us that violence does not solve our problems,' he said.

Tuesday's attack took place on the edge of Bangui's majority Muslim PK 5 neighbourhood, where 21 were killed last month during clashes between security forces and criminal gangs. Notre Dame de Fatima church was previously attacked by gunmen in 2014, when worshippers and a priest were again the victims.