The Vatican decried the death of South African motorcyclist Elmer Symons in the Dakar Rally, the latest of scores of deaths associated with what it called a ”bloody, irresponsible” race.
The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano said in its issue to appear on Thursday that the 29-year-old Symons died in a race that has ”precious little to do with healthy competition”.
”The trail of blood that lengthens from one year to the next … emphasises the undeniable component of violence underlying any attempt to export ‘Western’ modes to a human and ecological context that has little to do with the West,” the weekly said in an article datelined Rabat.
”With a cynical attitude that ignores the reality [of the countries] traversed, cars, motorbikes and even enormous trucks throw themselves at breakneck speed into the desert, where their carcasses are often abandoned to rot, becoming rusty monuments to irresponsibility,” it said.
Figures vary on the number of people — contestants, spectators, journalists and innocent bystanders — who have been killed in the rally since its inception in 1979.
Osservatore Romano put the figure at 54. ‒ Sapa-AFP