AFRICA/CÔTE D' IVOIRE - Fides hears missionary’s tragic story of massacres in western Côte d'Ivoire: “We have opened our mission to shelter some 12,000 men, women and children running for their lives”

Duekoue (Fides Service)- “I witnessed terrible scenes, at least 41 poor bodies abandoned in the middle of the road and no one to bury them” said a Catholic missionary in Duekoue western Côte d'Ivoire where during the night of 31 May gangs of armed men raided two villages setting homes on fire and attacking innocent civilians with firearms and choppers.
“The attackers were well armed with Kalashnikov rifles and machetes” the missionary told Fides. “I will never forget those mangled bodies of women and children and charred remains of five women burned alive in their poor dwelling”.
“We have opened our mission to shelter at least 12,000 people who have come to us for protection” the missionary told Fides. “The people, not all Catholics many are Animists and Muslims, are all praying for peace and for this insane violence to stop”.
“Our main concern at the moment is how the feed them. They are too afraid to go to the market to buy food or even to the fields to find something to eat. We appealed to the World Food Programme and the Red Cross to send food aid immediately. They promised they would, but nothing has arrived yet” the missionary told Fides.
Duékoué is not far from the point where the country is cut in two, a line watched by 6,000 international peacekeepers. It lies in the extreme western region of Côte d'Ivoire which has most of the country cacao plantations cacao (the main export) not far from the border with Liberia another country still recovering from years of bloody civil war and still a source of destabilisation.
“The raided villages are in this so-called trust zone which separates government forces from rebel troops The zone is in theory under the surveillance of UN peacekeepers but the latter appear to be helpless against this sort of violence ” the missionary told Fides.
At the root of the trouble is the old land dispute between local Guéré people and Dioula who moved here from northern Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 2/6/2005 righe 32 parole 393)