With our correspondent in Abidjan, Youenn Gourlay
Téné Birahima Ouattara, the Ivorian Minister of Defense, gathered this Wednesday in Abidjan the families of 49 Ivorian soldiers detained in Mali for more than three weeks. They are accused by Bamako of being mercenaries, but according to the Ivorian authorities, they were going to join the UN force in Mali.
Mothers, fathers, wives, children… The families of the 49 military soldiers were therefore represented in large numbers by their families at the general staff of the armies. The Minister of Defense wanted to reassure them. ” Your brothers, your children, your husbands have not sinned at all. They were there as part of a support mission and I would also like to reassure you [sur le fait] that your soldiers have good morale, are treated under normal conditions. »
The Minister also assured that he would do everything possible for their release. But 24 days after the arrest of their relatives in Bamako, the families still have no news. An unbearable wait for Pascaline, little sister of one of the soldiers. “ I don’t sleep so much it hurts me, she confides. At night, when I think of him, as soon as I wake up, I’m in tears. His son had the baccalaureate, we don’t know how we’re going to tell him. My heart bleeds. »
During this waiting period, the Ivorian army promised a sum of 300,000 CFA francs to the families.
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