Catholic school attacked in Ivory Coast over national education policy

Madrid, Spain, Mar 16, 2009 / 05:22 pm MT (CNA).-

The Salesian Info Agency reported last week that Muslim and Christian students from the Don Bosco Salesian Institute in Korhogo, Ivory Coast did not respond violently to attacks by 200 young people “armed with clubs and machetes” who suddenly entered the Institute and forced the students, teachers and other staff to suspend lessons and leave the school.

“The 372 students in the Salesian School who have cultivated an attitude of integration and dialogue (47% are  Muslim and 37% Christian), kept calm and have not retaliated responding to the aggression with further violence as is sadly often happening in these days in other schools around the country with terrible consequences,” the report indicated.

Fr. Guillermo Basañes, Councillor for the Africa-Madagascar Region, who was in Korhogo, invited the young students “to be responsible and to form their own consciences. This is a particularly significant exhortation bearing in mind the deep moral disorders which the recent history of the Ivory Coast with its wars has left among the young.”

The Salesian news agency explained that yesterday’s attack is part of a widespread reaction against a newly adopted educational policy. Opponents of the policy have taken to attacking schools that refuse to take part in a strike being conducted by state schools.