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By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed "right before our eyes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday. The bleak warning came as the country's foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. Security Council to urgently approve a U.N. peacekeeping force to stop the killing. "Since early December we have effectively witnessed a 'cleansing' of the majority of the Muslim population in western CAR," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on the crisis in the impoverished and landlocked country. The council is considering a U.N. proposal for a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop the country from sliding toward what a top U.N. rights official called "ethnic-religious cleansing." If approved, the U.N. force would likely not be operational before late summer.More...