Ivory Coast evicts thousands of cocoa farmers to save forests

An OPIR agent responsible for Mont Peko, stands guard at a destroyed village during an eviction operation of illegal farmers from Burkina Fasso inside the Mont Peko National Park in Duekoue department, western Ivory Coast August 2, 2016. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

MONT PEKO NATIONAL PARK, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Before the morning mists had broken over Ivory Coast's Mont Peko National Park, thousands of newly homeless cocoa farmers and their families began to stir, fetching water and lighting cooking fires outside Sylvain Zongo's church at the forest edge.

"I don't know what I am going to do. All I can do is pray to God, otherwise it breaks my heart," the pastor said, surveying a scene more evocative of the West African nation's civil war years than its relative prosperity today.