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CNS Story:
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POPE-IVORYCOAST Nov-8-2004 (300 words) With photos. xxxi
Pope expresses concern over violence, killings in Ivory Coast
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II said he was deeply concerned about a new eruption of violence in Ivory Coast, where nine French soldiers and a U.S. civilian were killed in early November.
The pope made the remarks before praying the Angelus from his apartment window above St. Peter's Square Nov. 7. The same day, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo appealed for calm after two days of anti-French riots.
The pope said he wanted to express his "worry at the serious news coming from Ivory Coast, where violence is creating new victims."
"May weapons fall silent, may peace accords be respected, may there be a return to the path of dialogue. I entrust the people of the country to Mary, Queen of Peace," he said.
The hostilities erupted when a two-year-old ceasefire between government and rebel forces broke down, and government forces launched air attacks against rebel positions. The French and U.S. victims died in a government bombing of the rebel-held town of Bouake.
In retaliation, on Nov. 7 French forces destroyed much of the country's air force. That prompted riots in the capital of Abidjan, where protesters attacked foreign nationals and looted shops.
Father Cesare Baldi, an Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, said eyewitnesses reported that French troops had fired into a crowd of protesters near the airport outside Abidjan Nov. 6, leaving at least six civilians dead and perhaps many more.
"It was a slaughter. The French soldiers pointed their weapons on the crowd and opened fire," Father Baldi told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Father Baldi, who was stationed at a parish building nearby, said he obtained his information from a young Catholic who was among those demonstrating.
Ivory Coast's population is about 30 percent Christian.
END
Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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