Posted on 09/25/2002 11:02:26 AM PDT by HAL9000
Foreign schoolboys of Bouaké evacuated, on the way towards Yamoussoukro
Wednesday September 25, 2002 - 17h36 GMT
COMMUNE OF BOUAKE (Côte.d'ivoire), 25 seven (AFP) - the children of the international school of Bouaké, blocked since nearly one week by engagements between soldiers mutineers and governmental, were evacuated by the French troops Wednesday afternoon in direction of Yamoussoukro, the capital of the Ivory Coast, noted a journalist of the AFP.
"We are in safety now, we are free and happy of living", declared with the AFP a girl of the Colorado, which belonged to the convoy of schoolboys and their professors framed by the French soldiers.
Some of these children, old from two to 18 years, held up large American flags and all seemed in good health.
These some 170 children, in majority American but representing on the whole 13 different nationalities, were trapped since September 19 in the buildings of the Christian international school of Bouaké, city always held by mutineers.
The convoy, formed of a score of vehicles of private individuals, bus and minibus and framed by French soldiers on board trucks of transport of troops, moved towards Yamoussoukro, to a hundred kilometers in the south of Bouaké. The evacuated children were to spend the night in the administrative capital of the Ivory Coast.
"the hardest moment was yesterday (Tuesday) when they drew the ones on the others starting from two hills" dominating the Christian school, declared Jim, an adult guide originating in the State of Georgia.
"Of course that it was hard, it is Africa. Africa is always hard ", estimated as for him a teenager of about fifteen years.
According to staff's of the French Armies (EMA) in Paris, this evacuation was carried out "at the request of the American authorities".
"the responsibility for the French soldiers is exerted until Yamoussoukro"km in the south of Bouaké) where these nationals, added the staff," will be dealt with by the mission baptist of Yamoussoukro ".
Before evacuatebeing evacuated, the international school of Bouaké had been protected in the morning by a French detachment.
The Côte.d'ivoire is since September 19 in prey with military disorders, which made several hundreds of deaths, of which the Minister of Interior Department Emile Boga Doudou and the Gueï General, owner of the military junta to the capacity from December 1999 to October 2000.
I am happy is in safety the girl of the Colorado. I am bet she's of the Boulder.
Relax dude!
Right on. I am certainly no fan of the French, but these brave soldiers get a crisp salute from me, and my gratitude as an American (I haven't forgotten Lafayatte, either).
The time for bashing the French (or us Americans, for that matter) is when they are wrong, not when they do something right!
American soldiers humping duffel bags and metal boxes rapidly set up a post at the strip, a base for French troops who arrived earlier to move in on behalf of Yamoussoukro's foreigners. American officials would not say what the soldiers were going to do next.
" I knew some folks who basically deserted their own kids and blamed it on God: "God is sending us out to do His bidding."Saundra~ I know there are many who will not like what you said, but there is a lot of truth there! I had an Aunt who did this with her 5 children. She left them, and said that God would take care of them, while she did "the LORD's work." Now, one needs to ask why God gave them to her, then? Now 30 years later, all the children are drug addicts; the girls have several children by several men, one died and none have ever followed Jesus Christ!
Yes, God is calling some to Missions, but their first mission field is with their own children!
???
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