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| Tuesday, 31 October, 2000, 14:15 GMT Ivorian Muslims demand protection ![]() The violence has damaged community relations Muslim representatives in Ivory Coast are meeting new President Laurent Gbagbo to seek guarantees of security for their people under the new administration.
Clashes erupted soon after military ruler General Robert Guei was forced out of office after attempting to declare himself the winner of controversial presidential elections.
The Ivorian Movement for Human Rights quoted a police source as saying nearly 500 people were killed and about 1,000 seriously hurt in the clashes. Community relations The BBC's Abidjan correspondent, Elizabeth Blunt says that life in the commercial capital now appears to be back to normal, but the scars of last week's events still run deep.
This, the leaders say, has given them the impression that some citizens are now being regarded as less Ivorean than others. The council's vice-president, Alhaji Diguiba Ciss�, said, "the main problem to tackle during this meeting will be to know that our security is guaranteed in the new Ivory Coast of the second republic." "There is a very deep feeling of exclusion of our community," he said. Reports say most of those who were hunted down and killed were Muslims, with their family origins in northern Ivory Coast or neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso. |
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