|
|
Church in the WorldPope calls for 'silencing of arms' in Ivory CoastAfrica 13 November 2004
The Pope has made an urgent call for peace in the Ivory Coast, where nine French soldiers and an American civilian were killed in attacks by the Government's air force last weekend.
'May weapons fall silent, may peace accords be respected, may there be a return to the path of dialogue,' said the Pope, adding that he wanted to express his 'worry at the serious news coming from Ivory Coast, where violence is creating new victims'. He was speaking before praying the Angelus last Sunday, as the Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, appealed for calm after two days of anti-French riots.
Fighting broke out as a two-year-old ceasefire between the Government and rebel forces collapsed. Government forces launched air-strikes against rebel strongholds, killing the French and American victims in a raid on the rebel-held town of Bouake.
The retaliation of French forces - who comprise 4,000 of a 10,000-strong UN force - was swift, destroying much of the country's air force on 7 November. Those raids prompted riots in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, where protesters attacked foreign nationals and looted shops.
Eyewitnesses reported that at least six civilians had been killed and many more wounded as French troops fired into a crowd of protesters near Abidjan's main airport. 'It was a slaughter. The French soldiers pointed their weapons on the crowd and opened fire,' Fr Cesare Baldi, an Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
An Ivorian government minister put the death tally far higher. 'We have counted around 50 people dead; all of them were demonstrators shot by the French,' said the National Reconciliation Minister, Sebastien Dano. There was no independent confirmation of the figure, but sources at one hospital in Abidjan said 18 people had been taken there dead or had died of their wounds later.
Mamadou Coulibaly, president of the Ivorian National Assembly, sent harsh warnings to Paris, after accusing the French of killing more than 30 people, which the French authorities denied. 'What has happened marks a point of rupture. Vietnam will seem like nothing compared to what we are going to see here,' Coulibaly warned.
The Ivory Coast was a French colony until 1960. A fifth of the country's 17 million inhabitants is Catholic, and unrest has left one million displaced people and a health crisis throughout the country. |
 In this week’s issueMaking markets moral Iron and velvet Love in a Catholic climate Someone to talk to A good Lent takes planning South American surprise Can the Church support abuse victims on its own terms? Elena Curti Is the Church too slow in recognising that academies are the future for Catholic schools? Christopher Lamb Goodwin the scapegoat Elena Curti The pain of being a coeliac Catholic Sr M, guest contributor The Church's moral obligation to victims of clerical sexual abuse Speeches from this week's conference in Rome This week in Rome bishops and religious superiors met at the first Vatican-backed symposium devoted to forging a global response to the crisis of clerical sexual abuse that has disgraced ... Archbishop voices 'shame and sorrow' after priest's abuse trial Longley to visit parishes 'damaged' by Walsh Today, Tuesday 7 February, Bede Walsh, who served as a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, has been convicted by a jury, following a 10-day trial at Stoke-on-Trent ...
|
