A parish secretary has been murdered by an unknown assailant in her office at St. Cecile’s Catholic Church, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Mrs. Faustine Brou on Saturday evening, 10 August, was attacked in her office by a man who inflicted multiple knife wounds upon her, in an act of unspeakable violence.
She was found alive in her office at around 11 PM and taken to hospital for treatment. She succumbed to her extensive wounds and died at around 4 AM on Sunday morning.
Parishioners said she was known for her availability and spiritual commitment to the Church.
A post on the parish Facebook page called Mrs. Brou’s murder “appalling”.
“We are all in shock,” it read, “but we believe that life here on earth is only passing and that our eternal homeland is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The message also called on local Catholics to pray for the soul of Mrs. Brou, as well as for the assailant who took her life and “those who may have commissioned this despicable act.”
Other incidents of anti-Catholic sentiments have recently occurred in the southern part of Ivory Coast. In early July, a statue of the Virgin Mary was decapitated in Grand-Yapo, some 60 km north of Abidjan. A similar act of violence against a Marian shrine was carried out on 3 August in the Yopougon neighborhood in Abidjan.
