Ivory Coast: 3 dead in school violence

High schools and colleges in Côte d’Ivoire are under pressure ahead of the Christmas holidays. On Wednesday, the Ivorian Minister of Education, Kandia Camara, announced the death toll of three students killed in the violence documented across the country.

For the past ten days, lessons in high schools and colleges in Côte d’Ivoire have been disrupted. This is precisely the intention of the students and non-students who have taken these schools by storm to demand early Christmas holidays. In these demonstrations, sometimes of a rare violence, three students lost their lives, announced Wednesday the Ivorian Minister of Education.

A pupil of the 3rd class was assassinated « disembowelled » on December 04 last in Anyama (northern suburb of Abidjan), another of Terminale was « slaughtered » in Daloa, in the center of the country, on Monday December 9 and the third assassination was recorded in Dimbokro – in the center – where a pupil of the 2nd grade killed on Wednesday.

“Once again, we are heartbroken. We are saddened, the education community is in mourning, « said Kandia Camara as she held an emergency meeting with actors from the education system, traditional leaders, unionists and members of the government.

A not so new trend

« Some students have decided for themselves the leave date … some students decide to take early leave (…) Shall we continue to be silent in front of our children who murder our children? She continued before announcing sanctions for the violence.

« I am saying it here and I want parents in Côte d’Ivoire to remember it: all the guilty children will be expelled from all public and private schools, » said the minister.

In addition to the three assassinations, an initial assessment by the Ministry of Security and Civil Protection reports 80 arrests, including 42 people brought before the Ivorian courts.

The phenomenon of anticipated Christmas holidays in Ivory Coast is not new. In the course of the 2000s, groups of students, sometimes violent, under the impulse of the influential Student and School Federation of Côte d’Ivoire (Fesci) swept over public and private establishments to force the administration and the faculty to stop classes before the date indicated for Christmas holidays.

Disturbances, which, mixed with the many strikes in the education system, have greatly curbed the Ivorian school.