EU diplomat killed in Ivory Coast

The French diplomat was reportedly killed overnight in his home with his own pistol.

IVORY COAST MAP — Ivory Coast is recovering from a civil-war between the largely Muslim north and the largely Christian south

Reasons for murder unclear

Jacques Cuzi, a spokesman for the French embassy, said that Miaucel had been shot with his own gun by unknown assailants and died in his home.

Cuzi said that Miaucel was in charge of West Africa security operations for the EU and said that investigations into the incident were continuing.

“Since there was no break-in into the house, it could be someone close to him,” Cuzi said.

Miaucel lived with his wife and children in Ivory Coast’s southern commercial capital, Abidjan.

Lawless country

The West African state has been divided into a rebel-held north and government-run south since a brief 2002-2003 civil war.

The United Nations is overseeing a transition government, and some 10,000 UN and French troops are deployed in the world’s top cocoa grower, many of them in a buffer zone separating the two sides.

Armed robberies targeting the homes of expatriates and diplomats have become fairly common as poverty in the once prosperous former French colony has increased since the war.

Source: News Agencies