Koert Lindijer is an award-winning journalist with the Dutch daily NRC-Handelsblad. His articles are not usually widely read in English, but we thought the Anglophone world should also benefit from Koert's many years of experience reporting from Africa. This week, Koert returns to the village of Zèré, where in November he saw how Christians had been attacked and slain by Muslim gangs. Now the roles are reversed. Amidst the rubble of the destroyed mosque of Zèré, in the middle of the Central African Republic, kids mock the Muslim mode of praying. They push their bottoms in to the air and jeer: "Allah, get the hell out of here ". The elderly also join in and shout: "We never want to see them here anymore." Deep hateful cries sound in all corners of the country. Christian youths with machetes cleanse the land of Muslims. More than a thousand mosques and Koranic schools have been smashed into ruins; more than a hundred imams have been killed. A handful of remaining Muslims have become trapped, and are sheltered in enclaves guarded by international peacekeepers. The roles are reversed in the Central African Republic - the country is in even greater chaos than it [...]
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