In Côte d’Ivoire, a post-election deadlock has become bloodier and more violent by the day, and abuses committed by former President Laurent Gbagbo’s security forces very likely amount to crimes against humanity.
Skriver Human Rights Watch i deres elektroniske nyheder d. 15. marts.
Nearly 400 civilians have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more have fled the violence. Witnesses and victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch have implicated the same pro-Gbagbo groups as the main culprits. These groups have systematically raped, killed, and “disappeared” supporters or perceived supporters of Alassane Ouattara, who nearly the entire world agrees won the November presidential election.
Over state television, Gbagbo’s “youth minister,” demonstrating a government policy of encouraging violence, called on “real” Ivoirians to set up neighborhood roadblocks and “denounce” foreigners – citizens of neighboring countries and Ivorian citizens of different ethnicity from the north, Ouattara’s stronghold. West African immigrants gave detailed accounts of armed militias beating people to death, burning them alive, or chasing them from their homes.
On the Ouattara side, fighters killed at least nine civilians in a village of mostly Gbagbo supporters and have begun executing detained pro-Gbagbo forces.
UN Security Council action to impose sanctions against Gbagbo and his close allies is long overdue.
