'Ivory Coast in all its horror'

2004-12-24 12:08

Paris - A UN report has outlined horrific examples of death squads, mass executions, torture and rapes in troubled Ivory Coast during the past two years and blamed both sides for the atrocities, France's Liberation newspaper reported Friday.

The daily, after obtaining a copy of the 100-page report - which has not been made public - said it exposed "the nightmare of Ivory Coast in all its horror."

Among others, it listed foreign aid for a failed September 2002 coup plot; massacres by rebel forces in the central town of Bouake a month later; summary executions by government forces in Monoko-Zohi and Bangolo in December 2002; savage inter-factional violence earlier this year; and widespread use of rape and torture.

The document, submitted to the United Nations, lists names of key suspects in a secret annexe, Liberation added.

It said the UN report covered the period from the failed coup up to October this year, shortly before the country was again rocked by violence, this time directed against the large French expatriate community.

Once France's star colony in west Africa, a cocoa-rich beacon of stability in an otherwise volatile region, Ivory Coast has been wracked by unrest since the uprising.

The country is now split between the government-controlled south, including the capital Abidjan, and the rebel-held north.

The UN report, Liberation added, implicated neighbouring states - notably Burkina Faso but also Mali - in providing training bases and equipment to the 2002 coup plotters, and others, such as Guinea and Angola, in supporting the government forces.

'Coldly executed'

In October 2002, after Ivorian forces failed to retake Bouake, 131 unarmed civilians, including children, were "coldly executed" by rebels who also led a deadly manhunt for anyone associated with the authorities.

In December that year, Ivorian forces killed 120 immigrant workers in cocoa and coffee plantations at Monoko-Zohi, while Liberian mercenaries working for the regime massacred 200 people in Bangolo.

The report, drawn up by a five-member commission, reported cases of torture including a woman forced to drink blood and urine, and a man who was forced to have sex with his mother. She was then killed, and he was ordered to drink her blood.

Women of all ages, including children, were raped.

"On both sides of the conflict," Liberation cited the UN report as saying, "women were used to assuage the bestial appetites of the combatants, some of whom were under the influence of drugs."

In a concluding section, the UN team said they hoped that their work would help "progressively to end the impunity and generalised irresponsibility that characterise Ivory Coast," the daily reported.

- AFP