Biggest white elephant in the world

Where in the world is the biggest church? It’s the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, in Yamoussoukro (above).

I bet it’s the first time most people outside Yamoussoukro has heard of Yamoussoukro, the supposed capital of Ivory Coast in west Africa.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is a close copy of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, but it is a little taller. It is also one of the world’s biggest white elephants.

In fact, most of the buildings in Yamoussoukro are white elephants, monuments built in the dirt-poor, violence-wracked country where UN peacekeepers maintain a fragile peace.

It wasn’t always like that. For more than three decades after independence, under its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast was known for religious and ethnic harmony and its well-developed economy. All this ended when Robert Guei led a coup which toppled Felix Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Bedie, in 1999.

Bedie fled, but not before planting the seeds of ethnic discord by trying to stir up xenophobia against Muslim northerners. Laurent Gbagbo replaced Robert Guei after he was deposed in a popular uprising in 2000.

In September 2002 a troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the discontent of northern Muslims who felt they were being discriminated against in Ivorian politics. Thousands were killed in the conflict. The fighting has stopped but the country is tense and divided. French and UN peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone which separates the north, held by rebels known as the New Forces, and the government-controlled south.

Fortunately, the white elephants in Yamoussoukro attract curious tourists, who buy snacks and souvenirs from street hawkers like Blanchard. She sells peanuts and coconuts to the visitors.

“Having the basilica here is really good. Thanks to the basilica, we eat often,” Blanchard says. “I’ve got my school diploma but I don’t have a job. Instead of sitting at home doing nothing, I can look after this coconut stand for my sister.”

Pictures, information from the BBC