UN condemns Ivory Coast plan to raid Catholic refuge
-03/10/05
The United Nations has criticized a proposed move to forcefully expel nearly 3,000 vulnerable, displaced people from a Roman Catholic mission in civil-war threatened Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire).
The UNís emergency commissioner says that the move, announced in a recent government circular, would be a clear violation of fair treatment in a situation of conflict. The Church has been offering support to recognised internal refugees.
ì[We are] deeply troubled by this flagrant display of lack of respect for humanitarian principles and for the people under our humanitarian protection,î Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Repeated attacks on the civilian population of Duekoue and surrounding villages in late May and early June 2005 sent some 15,000 people to seek shelter at the mission, run by the Catholic Church. Of these, around 2,700 still remain, according to the UN news service.
The UN country team in the Ivory Coast learned of the plan on 27 September, after the unveiling of a memo saying that the internally displaced persons residing at the mission should be kicked out.
Meanwhile, the special representative for Cote d’Ivoire of the UN secretary-general, Pierre Schori, has invited parties to the current political crisis inside the country to end the language of war, embrace dialogue, and start working together seriously.
Mr Schori was speaking at a special West African regional summit on the conflict last week. Nationwide elections have long been scheduled for 30 October 2005, and the hope is to reach a settlement before then.
In January 2003, following a civil war in 2002, President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a ‘government of national unity’. Curfews were lifted and French troops patrolled the western border of the country.
Since then, the unity government has proved very unstable. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally. A later report concluded that the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed, relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate in 2005.
UN condemns Ivory Coast plan to raid Catholic refuge
-03/10/05
The United Nations has criticized a proposed move to forcefully expel nearly 3,000 vulnerable, displaced people from a Roman Catholic mission in civil-war threatened Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire).
The UN’s emergency commissioner says that the move, announced in a recent government circular, would be a clear violation of fair treatment in a situation of conflict. The Church has been offering support to recognised internal refugees.
‘[We are] deeply troubled by this flagrant display of lack of respect for humanitarian principles and for the people under our humanitarian protection,’ Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Repeated attacks on the civilian population of Duekoue and surrounding villages in late May and early June 2005 sent some 15,000 people to seek shelter at the mission, run by the Catholic Church. Of these, around 2,700 still remain, according to the UN news service.
The UN country team in the Ivory Coast learned of the plan on 27 September, after the unveiling of a memo saying that the internally displaced persons residing at the mission should be kicked out.
Meanwhile, the special representative for Cote d’Ivoire of the UN secretary-general, Pierre Schori, has invited parties to the current political crisis inside the country to end the language of war, embrace dialogue, and start working together seriously.
Mr Schori was speaking at a special West African regional summit on the conflict last week. Nationwide elections have long been scheduled for 30 October 2005, and the hope is to reach a settlement before then.
In January 2003, following a civil war in 2002, President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a ‘government of national unity’. Curfews were lifted and French troops patrolled the western border of the country.
Since then, the unity government has proved very unstable. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally. A later report concluded that the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed, relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate in 2005.