Survivors recount mass killings

2004-08-07 09:08

Korhogo - Dozens of boys and men suffocated to death, locked for days in an airless, sweltering shipping container by rebels controlling northern Ivory Coast, two survivors said.

The accounts, and stories from a family of numerous missing men, support UN and Amnesty International findings on three newly discovered mass graves in the country's rebel-held north. The killings occurred during a flare of factional fighting in June.

An unspecified number of the 99 dead buried in the graves appeared to have suffocated, the United Nations said on Monday in a preliminary statement. The UN Security Council called the killings a "massacre".

"We were in difficult conditions: no water, no food, no air. Sometimes they pumped tear gas into the container," said Siaka, one survivor, who spoke on condition he not be identified further.

Detainees 'packed too tightly'

Detainees were packed too tightly to move - and for some, too tightly to breathe, said Siaka, who explained that he lived by gasping air through a small hole in the top of the container.

"I thought I was going to die," a second survivor, 25-year-old herdsman Amadou, said.

Surviving was "a miracle. It's due to God."

Amadou, who declined to be further identified, said he counted 75 dead inside the container. He said another three detainees disappeared after being forced to help dispose of the bodies.

The allegations represent the most serious charges of rights abuses lodged against Ivory Coast's rebels since they took control of the north in a nine-month civil war, which officially ended in July 2003.

Rebel spokesperson Alain Lobognon denied that the container, a 12m long by 2.75 high yellow metal box, formerly at the entrance of a rebel-held military base, had been used to imprison people. Lobognon would not comment on the other allegations.

The alleged killings occurred during the first major factional fighting in rebel ranks, a June 20 uprising by followers of dissident rebel leader Ibrahim Coulibaly.

Supporters of the main rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, put the challenge down within days. Soro's forces put the death toll in the uprising at just 22.

Rebels held north coast since September 2002

Rebels have held the north of cocoa-rich Ivory Coast - once one of West Africa's most stable and prosperous nations - since launching an unsuccessful coup attempt in September 2002.

The civil war that followed split Ivory Coast between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian and animist south.

Over the past year, troops and militias loyal to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo have been accused of numerous abuses, including the killing of at least 120 people during and after an attempted March opposition rally in the southern commercial capital, Abidjan.

However, survivors and others now accuse followers of the main rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, of killing dozens of prisoners, many of them civilians, during and after the June uprising.

Amnesty International said it believed some of the 99 mass grave victims had their hands tied behind their backs before being beheaded, while others suffocated in shipping containers.

Container 'regularly' used as prison

Korhogo residents said the container in front of the town's main army base had been regularly used as a prison by the city's rebel military commander, Fofie Kouakou.

Siaka and Amadou say their time in the container began in advance of the fighting, when they were locked up on unrelated complaints - Siaka in a violent family dispute, and Amadou in an alleged motorcycle theft. Fewer than 30 others initially were in the container with them, they said.

After the factional fighting broke late on June 20, the number quickly rose to more than 100.

"We were 125 in there, and it became extremely hot," Amadou said. "We were hot and hungry. Some of us began collapsing in the container."

Rebel leaders finally opened the container two days later - at 03:00 on June 22, Amadou said. By that time, it was filled with dead. Fofie's people immediately put inmates to work removing the corpses, Amadou and Siaka said.

"We took the dead and put them in a truck, and we counted 75 bodies," including a relative of Amadou, he said.

"When we finished counting the corpses, they took three of us to go with them and the bodies," Amadou said. "These three never came back."

Another Korhogo resident, Inza Kone, said nine members of his family - including a boy as young as 14 - disappeared after being arrested during fighting.

Two weeks later, local elders held a meeting with rebel officials to find out whether the youths were still alive.

"They officially informed them that they were dead, but they didn't give us back the bodies," said Kone. "We are powerless."

- AP