‘It hurts to see my friends, brothers, killing each other’

Chelsea striker tells Stuart James he has more than football on his mind – his father is caught up in the Ivory Coast conflict Salomon Kalou has a huge weight on his mind and it has nothing to do with Chelsea’s Champions League defeat against Manchester United in midweek. The prospect of finishing the season at Stamford Bridge without a trophy is hard to contemplate but it pales into insignificance compared with the heartache Kalou feels when he turns his thoughts to his family and friends caught up in the conflict in the Ivory Coast. The bitter and bloody fallout from last November’s presidential elections has plunged the country where Kalou spent the first 17 years of his life back into civil war. Thousands have been killed and the harrowing images of the street battles in Abidjan, where his father, Antoine, and other members of his extended family live, together with the stories of food and water shortages in what was once West Africa’s most prosperous country, plague Kalou’s conscience. “It’s very hard to go on to the pitch and say I’m not thinking about people dying every day, I’m not thinking about my friends not eating, my dad not getting help,” Kalou says. “To be honest, I worry every day. I am thinking more about that than anything else. Any chance I have to go on the phone or to go on the news and check I do, because that’s my main priority. I need to make sure my family are safe. “I got my mum and five sisters out four days before it started. When we played against Benin in Ghana last month with Ivory Coast [in an African Cup of Nations qualifier moved to a neutral venue because of the violence], I got them to come and watch the game and from there they went to Togo. They can stay there until the end of the situation. My dad was going to come as well but the war started on the day he was going to come.” Kalou acknowledges he is in a fortunate position to be able to afford sanctuary for his mother and sisters in Togo for as long as they need it, but he feels “helpless” in relation to his father’s predicament. The problems in Abidjan mean that, at the time of this interview, which takes place at his home in Surrey on Thursday evening, Kalou has gone three days without speaking to his father. He is desperate to hear news of a peaceful resolution. “I don’t want to take any sides and I don’t want to get involved in the politics of the Ivory Coast because politics is for politicians, but it hurts me to see my friends, my brothers, killing each other,” he says. “Some of my best friends are from the north, I’m from the west, I have friends from the south – I have a lot of Ivorian friends. Ivorians don’t have problems with Ivorians. Politics are dividing people. But is that a reason for people to kill? Why not stop that now and talk. People from outside should help to bring peace. Bring food and water to people. That’s what I call worrying about the civilians. Then I can have respect for that and say those people really care. If your priority is to say one side loses and one side wins, then you are not stopping anything. They will keep

Posted by on April 8, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.