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Since the outbreak of the conflict on September 19, 2002, civilians have been the victims of widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by the Ivorian armed forces (Forces Armées Nationales de Côte d’Ivoire, FANCI), members of the state security forces such as the gendarmes and police and individuals working in collaboration with government forces.34 These violations include systematic and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, summary executions of civilians and other non-combatants, arbitrary arrests and detentions, “disappearances,” torture, corporal punishment and other violent acts against civilians, rape, destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, and pillage. The perpetrators of abuses include 1) the government forces; 2) mercenaries working with and recruited by the Ivorian government, including Liberian fighters from the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) rebel group; and 3) state-supported civilian militias.
In all three patterns of abuse documented by Human Rights Watch, civilian victims were targeted based on ethnic, religious, national or suspected political affiliation. In many cases, the victims’ names alone were considered grounds for arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture and executions, based on the identification of the name as a potential northerner or immigrant or political opposition member. Victims have also been targeted on the basis of religious affiliation, for instance, Muslims have often been assumed to be supporting the rebel forces, imams have been killed, and mosques have been attacked. Members of certain professions have also been victims of abuses: drivers and owners of transport businesses have been targeted by government forces, apparently due to suspicions of their involvement in transport and supply of arms and funding to the rebels. Another motive for the targeting of transporters and businesspeople may have been the dominance of “Dioula” northerners and immigrants in this field.
Some of the targeting of political opposition and suspected rebel sympathizers was done with premeditation and planning. Numerous witnesses told Human Rights Watch of the existence of lists of names that circulated among units of the government armed forces in Daloa, Guiglo, Vavoua, and other locations. In several cases, witnesses escaped after being warned of the existence of the lists by friendly government contacts. In most cases these lists appear to have been created with assistance from local villagers and townspeople sympathetic to the government. In some cases however, the names on the lists may have originated in Abidjan.
Widespread and systematic killings of civilians by the government armed forces and irregular forces affiliated to the government took place during offensives and counteroffensives on towns like Vavoua, Man and Toulepleu. They also took place during “cleaning” operations conducted by paramilitary groups such as the anti-riot squad (Brigade Anti-Emeute, BAE) in towns re-taken from the rebels, such as in Daloa in October 2002. These operations on the ground were sometimes accompanied by indiscriminate or targeted helicopter attacks in which civilians were the principal victims.
The attacks on civilians—particularly the killings in places like Daloa, Monoko-Zohi, and Man—appear to have been carried out with the aim of systematically eliminating all individuals suspected of supporting the rebels. The targeting of specific individuals was often undertaken with the assistance of part of the local civilian population, mostly Bété or Gueré youth groups or civilian militias. Human Rights Watch received numerous accounts describing how civilians pointed out potential supporters of the rebels to the government armed forces. Based on lists of names and on this physical identification of homes by civilians, members of the government forces would then arbitrarily arrest and execute the individuals. Human Rights Watch gathered information on over 250 cases of summary executions by the Ivorian armed forces in a variety of towns in the west and verified over forty such cases. This figure does not include the dozens of individuals who were last seen in government custody and have “disappeared” or the dozens of cases of individuals who were killed in remote settlements in rural areas, and is therefore very likely a serious underestimation of the total number of victims. It also does not include the estimated hundreds of victims of assassinations in Abidjan and other areas in the southwest.
The first such large-scale series of summary executions by government forces documented by Human Rights Watch took place in Daloa in October 2002, after the government regained control of the town.
Daloa town lies in the Haut-Sassandra region, originally a largely Bété area where substantial numbers of northerners and immigrants have settled in both the town and the rural villages over the years. Ethnically, the town and region of Daloa have changed enormously in the past decades due to internal migration and immigration. While the Bété retain a substantial presence in the area and a strong affiliation for the ruling FPI party, the population of northern Ivorians and Burkinabé immigrants has grown significantly. In March 2001, the RDR won the municipal elections, giving the town its first RDR mayor and providing a serious shock to the Bété and others who supported the ruling FPI party. Daloa is among the largest towns in the country and a key transit point for crop harvests, given its location on the edge of the cocoa, coffee and cotton belts, and its road connections to San Pedro, Yamassoukrou and Abidjan.
The MPCI rebels moved south from Vavoua and arrived in Daloa on October 11. Clashes with loyalist forces took place in the Lobia II quarter for several hours on the evening of October 11, resulting in the rebels capturing Daloa on October 12 and occupying the various military camps. Loyalist reinforcements, including Angolan mercenaries, arrived in the afternoon on October 13, and fighting recommenced, continuing until dawn, when the government forces re-captured Daloa. One individual, who was involved in the collection of the corpses following the fighting noted, “we counted about sixteen bodies, of which eight were collected from the military camp after the fighting and others were found around the camps of the gendarmerie.”35 These bodies were combatants from both sides.
So-called cleaning-up operations began in the town, initiated by the forces of the Brigade Anti-Emeute (BAE)—the paramilitary, anti-riot squads—who arrived in Daloa on October 14, 2002. On October 15, an article in the government newspaper Notre Voie stated that “the assailants found refuge in the quarters of the Dioula, who are favorable to them.” The article continued, “certain guns abandoned by the aggressors were collected by young RDR members who, since the beginning of the Daloa attack, have done nothing but support the actions of the terrorists, applauding them in their passage through their quarters.”36
Whatever the truth of the last allegation, between October 14 – 20, after the loyalists had regained control of the town, more civilians died as a result of summary executions by government forces than in any of the fighting of the preceding days. According to credible sources, the “ratissage” or combing operation of the BAE resulted in the killings of at least fifty-six people. Among these, forty-two were identified, many of them rich immigrant businessmen, RDR supporters, or known to be involved in transport.37 The consul of Mali in Daloa—Bakary Touré—was among the victims. At least ten people were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the state security forces and their whereabouts are unknown. Additional bodies of unidentified individuals were buried in mass graves in Daloa. Of the victims identified by families or local authorities, 90 percent were immigrants from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea or Ivorians of northern ethnicities.
Witnesses to the events described a similar scenario in most cases. The victims were arbitrarily arrested and taken from their homes by armed men in military uniform who arrived in blue military trucks or four-by-four pickup trucks, generally around or after the time of the curfew. In a number of the incidents, the trucks were marked with the letters BAE. After a day or more, the bullet-ridden bodies of the victims were found along roads in or leading out of Daloa. Sometimes the victims were first taken to the military camps before being summarily executed. Several witnesses from Daloa and other places where such killings took place stated that the loyalist military had lists of names of individuals, and that these people were specifically targeted. Human Rights Watch was told by one witness to the Daloa events that a BAE member had told the witness of the existence of “a blacklist with names of people who coordinated the rebels’ actions.”38
One such case was a prominent Burkinabé businessman named Tahirou Tinta. Tinta was in telephone contact with a relative several times in the days preceding and on the day of his arbitrary arrest on October 19, 2002. The morning of October 19, Tinta told his relative that he had been warned by a friend in the authorities that his name was on a list that had come from Abidjan, and that the names of other Burkinabé businessmen were also on the list. Tinta said he had been advised by this person not to sleep in the same place each night and never to go out alone.39
The relative told Human Rights Watch that Tinta and other Muslim northerners and immigrants became increasingly worried about threats to their security after the loyalist forces re-captured Daloa and articles appeared in the government newspaper accusing Dioula of supporting the rebels (see above). Their concern deepened on October 17 when the home, vehicles and stores of some Muslim businessmen in Daloa were ransacked and looted by groups of mainly Bété youths acting together with the gendarmes.40 Human Rights Watch was told, “the BAE came with a tank and smashed the door of the Malien consul. They beat one of his visitors, then the young Bétés and the municipal police came and looted and burned his cars, then they went to the stores and started taking merchandise.”41
The evening of October 19, at least eight armed men in uniform, described to Human Rights Watch as gendarmes, came to Tinta’s house in two four-by-four pickup trucks. Some stayed outside the house while others came in and demanded money. They took Tinta from the house that evening, along with a substantial sum of money. His body was found the next day, with gunshot wounds, on the side of a road in Daloa.42
According to a witness who helped collect and bury the bodies, between October 15 – 20 at least two bodies were found each day.43 On October 20, the BAE’s mopping–up activity culminated with an operation in the largely Dioula Orly II quarter, which they encircled with four-by-fours and tanks. Approximately fifty armed men then entered the quarter and checked identity cards. Based on reports gathered by Human Rights Watch, a large number of people, mostly young men bearing northern or immigrant names, were then shot on the spot and their homes were looted. According to the local Red Cross, twenty-two bodies were found following this operation, which were buried in a mass grave.44 Hundreds of panicked northerners fled the quarter, and many sought refuge in the Grand Mosque of Daloa.
The following day, young northerners and Muslims in Daloa demonstrated to protest the events. Muslim leaders and neighboring governments whose nationals had been killed also lodged protests with the government in Abidjan.
In reaction to press reports and growing accusations against the armed forces on the Daloa killings, the spokesperson of the armed forces admitted that cleaning up operations were still taking place, despite the government re-capture of the town and a cease-fire signed between the government and rebels on October 17. However, armed forces spokesperson Jules Yao Yao denied that civilians had been intentionally targeted by the armed forces. He said, “Every day bodies of people who died in combat are discovered amid the searches. These are not people intentionally killed by the armed forces, but individuals killed in combat. Elsewhere, based on the definition of assailant given by the head of state, the cleaning operations involve individuals who lodged or actively helped the assailants.”45 In a clear and damning statement of policy, the government spokesman continued, “The enemy, for the regular forces….is foremost armed men and then the civilian population who actively support them.”46
The government continued to deny that state security forces were responsible for the killings, but announced an investigation on October 25.47 Notably, the killings in Daloa stopped after the attacks were publicized, condemned locally and internationally, and the BAE forces left Daloa. However, the pattern of reprisal attacks against civilians exhibited by the BAE and other state security forces in Daloa was replicated in other locations.
On November 27, the day before the rebel groups launched their offensives on Danané and Man, the government forces sent troops northwest from Daloa, across the cease-fire line into rebel-controlled territory, probably in an attempt to attack Vavoua. On November 28 and 29 the government forces attacked Monoko-Zohi, a tiny village about seventy kilometers from Daloa. Monoko-Zohi and other villages in the district, such as Pélézi, Fiekon Borombo and Dania, had a mixed ethnic population of indigenous Ivorians, mainly of Niédéboua ethnicity, and foreign immigrants, largely Burkinabé, who were the main cultivators of the area’s cocoa and coffee plantations. There were pre-existing tensions between these two groups of villagers due to conflicts over land (see below, chapter IX). A Burkinabé farmer interviewed by Human Rights Watch described the collaboration between some of the indigenous Niédéboua villagers and the loyalist forces in the neighboring Pélézi village:
Pélézi is mixed, there were lots of foreigners—Burkinabé, Maliens, Guineans, Nigerians, and then the Ivorians--the Niédébouas and Baoulés—living there before the war. After September 19, there was a lot of tension with the Niédéboua villagers. The Niédéboua quarter was on one side of the village and the foreigner’s quarter on the other side. The Niédéboua said, “[w]e are going to chase you out and take our land.’ My Niédéboua friend told me that the Niédéboua had secret meetings after the rebels came in October. They weren’t happy that the rebels had come, they said “[t]he president of Burkina Faso was responsible for sending the rebels to CI.” They said that if the loyalist forces came, they would chase all the foreigners away. They made a list with the names of the foreigners, I was told this by some of the younger Niédéboua. It wasn’t just the Burkinabé, even the Baoulé were seen as foreigners in Pélézi.48
A week after the government attack, French forces visited Monoko-Zohi after receiving alarming reports from civilians displaced from the area. The French troops confirmed the existence of a mass grave reportedly containing approximately 120 bodies of mainly immigrant workers who had been living in the area.49
According to a BBC report based on a visit to Monoko Zohi and interviews with eyewitnesses on December 9, “[s]ix trucks full of men wearing Ivorian military uniforms, and with Ivorian Government license plates drove into the village, just inside rebel-held territory, and began firing in the air. Many of the villagers fled. Many of those who did not are now buried in the grave. Accusing the villagers of feeding rebels, soldiers went house-to-house in the hamlet with a list of names, survivors alleged.” 50 An eyewitness interviewed by the BBC stated that “soldiers shot some victims where they found them, and gathered others for execution together…. Some had their throats slit.”51
The government subsequently denied that its forces were responsible for the killings, noting that the Dania area was under the control of the rebel forces at the time of the massacre. The MPCI refuted this, claiming that government was not acknowledging its attacks in the area, and claiming that the Monoko-Zohi mass grave was only discovered after an MPCI patrol visited the village on December 4.52
While the events in Monoko-Zohi require further investigation, particularly with forensic expertise, many factors point to government responsibility for the massacre. The modus operandi of the killings, which corresponds with that used by government forces in other locations, the accounts given to international journalists by eyewitnesses at the site shortly after the events, and Human Rights Watch’s own interviews with individuals who were in villages in the area, confirm the presence of government forces in the area and their collaboration with local villagers hostile to the immigrant population. These factors consistently point to the government’s armed forces as the perpetrators of the killings.
A mixture of rebel forces captured Man on November 28. The government counter-attacked and succeeded in recapturing Man on November 30. The loyalist forces then held Man for at least two weeks, until the town was re-taken by the rebels on December 19, 2002.
Prior to the rebel capture of Man on November 28 and during the eighteen-day period in which government forces resumed control of the town, there were credible accounts of killings and “disappearances” of civilians by the government forces. An anonymous medical source in Man stated on December 9 that “about 150 bodies had been cleared from the streets of Man since it was retaken by government soldiers…. The victims included several people who had been executed.”53 However, this figure likely included the bodies of both rebel and government combatants killed in fighting as well as the bodies of civilians unintentionally killed in crossfire.
Further investigation, including forensic analysis of several mass grave sites in Man, will be required to establish the identities and methods used to kill the individuals whose bodies are in the sites. Nonetheless, Human Rights Watch has documented several incidents in Man where civilians were summarily executed by government forces during the period of loyalist control of the town and fears these may be only a fraction of the real number. A twenty-year-old Ivorian youth described the loyalist re-capture of Man and the summary execution of his neighbor, a transporter named Yacouba Sylla, to Human Rights Watch.
There were mercenaries working with Gbagbo—Angolans and South Africans—who were the advance troops, they arrived before the loyalists came into Man. People were able to move around the town, the curfew was 19:00 and the mercenaries were okay. The Angolans had yellow uniforms very different from the Ivorian army uniforms. They didn’t speak French, when you said something, they didn’t understand. The South Africans were mostly white…they gave people bread and wore khaki and tricots.
Then the loyalist troops came, things changed. They imposed a curfew of 16:00 and forbid people to move around. I stayed in after that….When you get up in the morning, you go outside and you would see bodies on the road. I heard of many killings in the other quartiers, but those I know are the ones from my quartier, like my neighbor, Yacouba Sylla. He was a Dioula, an Ivorian originally from Odienné. He was working in transport—he had five trucks. At this time, when the loyalists came to Man, he was the only person in his house, because the rest of his family had escaped. Sylla stayed because of his transport business.
There were four gendarmes who came to Sylla’s courtyard. They came in a four-by-four, in uniform, and they carried machine guns. They knocked on the door, and when Sylla arrived, they began to beat him. They said, ‘You the Dioula, you support the rebels.’ Sylla protested that he was innocent, but they beat him. They shot him twice, then searched the house for guns but they didn’t find anything. The family had already fled. In the morning, when I left my house, his body was lying in the street. With some other people from the quartier, we brought the body to the hospital morgue and called one of Sylla’s sons, in Biankouma. He was too afraid to come to Man to take care of the body, he asked us to ask the local Muslim community to help. I left Man soon after that, so I don’t know what happened to the body. 54
The majority of civilians targeted by government forces in Man were thought to be Yacouba and Dioula youths suspected of sympathies towards the rebels. In practice, this often translated into targeting members of the RDR or the UDPCI, the western-based party that supported General Guei. Individuals working in the transport industry were also suspect, as shown above, according to the logic used by the armed forces. Suspicions could fall on an individual simply because he carried an amulet or a certain kind of ring and was therefore thought to be a combatant who needed magical protection or a “dozo,” one of the traditional hunters recruited by the MPCI. As in other places controlled by government forces, a number of the victims were identified from lists of names compiled by local authorities and civilians.
Another witness interviewed by Human Rights Watch described this period of government control:
There were many killings under the loyalists. If the loyalists found you with an amulet ring, then they would kill you because they suspected it was a protection from fighting. They made a mass grave—there were so many deaths…. Matthias, the president of the UDPCI-youth, he was taken by the loyalists and we never saw him again. There were many killings, and the family had no rights to ask about what happened. When we talk about the loyalists, it’s the gendarmes and police, but also the Angolans and South Africans. It was the gendarmes from Abidjan who did the killings though. The local gendarmes were mostly killed in the fighting when the rebels took the town….There were many bodies in the streets, some decomposing. The loyalists also left many bodies in the cemetery. [They] would take bodies in military trucks to the cemetery to bury them, or just leave them there. 55
As these killings were taking place, the Ivorian army spokesperson stated, “the cleaning operation and the consolidation of republican forces is on-going in the town and vicinity of Man. Life has returned to normal in that area.”56 Ten days later, the rebels re-captured Man.
Human Rights Watch also documented summary executions of civilians, particularly members of the RDR, by government armed forces in other western towns under government control, including Bangolo, Duékoué and Guiglo.
In Bangolo in mid-December, the summary execution of a teacher—and RDR member—was witnessed by at least three people.
Two gendarmes came to the house around 14:00. [They] were armed with machine guns and dressed in military uniform. [They] asked his wife if her husband was there. When she said yes, they asked him to come out, then they looked at his identity card and said they were taking him to the gendarmerie. Then one of them said ‘it’s not worth it,’ and shot him in the right arm, then again in the left arm, then in the stomach. He fell. Then they said, ‘No one can touch the body, if anyone touches the body they’ll die. A rebel does not deserve burial.’ For two days the body was in the street, no one dared touch it. Finally his wife paid 15,000 CFA to some Guerés to pick up the body on a stretcher and take it away. They threw it off a bridge on the road to Man. 57
Human Rights Watch also heard allegations that in Guiglo, the municipal authorities “made a blacklist of one hundred forty people” with the names of leaders and members of the UPDCI and RDR, and that “the objective was to kill all the people on the list.”58
As described below in Chapter IX, a number of Burkinabé were also victims of summary executions by government forces in Duékoué and other locations.
Human Rights Watch documented two series of helicopter gunship attacks on villages and towns in the Vavoua and Zouan-Hounien regions in early December and mid-April, part of the loyalist offensives on both areas. These attacks were sometimes characterized by the indiscriminate and in some cases direct targeting of civilians. For instance, dozens of civilians were killed when helicopter gunships attacked market places, a medical clinic, and neighborhoods known to have concentrations of foreign nationals accused of supporting the rebels. The MI-24 helicopters used in these attacks were reportedly piloted by mercenaries.59
The first aerial attack on Vavoua town was the only one of the attacks documented by Human Rights Watch which appeared to target a military objective. In this attack, the fact that the rebels’ military barracks were situated in the city hall, in the middle of the town, contributed to civilian casualties. A forty-nine-year-old Burkinabé market woman from Vavoua described this attack to Human Rights Watch:
In late-November, it was a Wednesday, a helicopter came from the loyalists at about 6 p.m. I was in the market when the helicopter came from the direction of Daloa and started dropping bombs on the town. I started running, but I fell down and cut my knees. I went into a store and hid there until things quieted down. The plane dropped bombs on the city hall. The rebels had taken the city hall and sous-prefecture, that was where they had their military camps. The city hall was encircled by a wall, with trucks and weapons in the courtyard. The rebels shot at the helicopter, they managed to get one shot at it before it returned to Daloa.
Three people were killed in the bombing, they were about ten meters from the city hall. One of the people killed was a Nigerian, I didn’t know the others. That was the first time the helicopter came to Vavoua, but I heard that it also went to small villages like Pélézi and Monoko Zohi.60
Eyewitness descriptions of other helicopter attacks on other villages indicated that these attacks were clearly indiscriminate in their targeting of civilians. Three attacks on Pélézi, Dania, and Mahapleu resulted in the deaths of at least nineteen civilians, and these attacks represent only a fraction of the total civilian casualties from helicopter attacks. An attack on Mahapleu, which took place in late-December as the rebel and loyalists forces were fighting for control of Man, was a clear example of the type of indiscriminate bombing taking place.
Mahapleu is a small town on the main road fifty-three kilometers east of Man in the direction of Danané. Many people who fled Danané and Man towards the borders with Guinea and Liberia passed Mahapleu on their way out. A twenty-eight-year-old Ivorian driver who had witnessed the helicopter attacks on Danané, was searching for his family in Mahapleu on the day of the attack.
It was a Wednesday, which is market day in Mahapleu. It was about 1 p.m…. We were walking west…when we heard the helicopter coming from the direction of Man. It flew very low towards the market. The market is just along the big road to Man, and many people in the market came out to look…. We ran in the other direction. It was about sixty or eighty meters from the market when it fired. It fired twice in the direction of the market, with rockets that came out sideways. One of them hit the road and broke the road up into pieces. Some people died from that, from being hit by pieces of the road, rather than from the bomb. Then the helicopter flew into Mahapleu town. It went into the town and bombed the mosque and destroyed it.
There were rebels in the village, but they were at the checkpoints outside, along the road, not in the market…. I helped bury the dead from the helicopter attack. We buried five people that day. There were two young Mossi men, two Dioula: a young man and a girl about thirteen-years-old, and one Yacouba woman who ran a maquis in the market. The next day, three more were found dead, under the stalls in the market. They must have been injured and died while trying to get away. I saw the bodies but I didn’t help to bury them. Two were young girls. One had been hit in the back of the head and the other in the stomach. They were covered in blood and so swollen it was hard to tell their ages. The third was a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. I left and spent the night at an encampment in the bush…there was another woman there who had been hurt in the helicopter attack, she died in the bush that night.61
There are also indications that in some of the aerial attacks, there may have been deliberate targeting of areas where foreigners were known to reside. For instance, in Pélézi, where there was already friction between the indigenous Niédéboua and the immigrant population, the Niédébouawere allegedly warned by the loyalist forces of the impending aerial attack in a letter. A forty-six-year-old Burkinabé farmer who had a close friend among the Niédéboua described the first aerial attack on Pélézi as follows:
The loyalist forces gave the Niédéboua villagers a letter, saying that they would bomb the village. My Niédéboua friend and his family left Pélézi after that. The first bombing came at the end of November. An airplane came about 11 or 12 a.m. and circled above Pélézi three times. The rebels fired at it. Later that day a large helicopter came at about 5 p.m. It circled, the rebels fired at it, then it dropped bombs on the foreign quartier and shot around the Socampart store, near the market. It did not touch the Niédéboua quartier. The helicopter dropped nine bombs which left craters about one metre wide and deep.
Five people were killed, others were injured. It was evening so many people were at home. Three Baoulé children (two girls and one boy, all under fifteen-years-old) were killed when one of the bombs dropped in the courtyard of their home. Their bodies were completely destroyed by the bomb. A Burkinabé man named Salam died from a second bomb dropped about one hundred meters from the one that killed the children. A Nigerian woman died from her injuries two days later, in Vavoua, from a third bomb dropped in the vicinity.
Everyone went to the bush that night. The rebels came and told people to come back when it was over. Then there was another bombing, about one week later. This time it was a plane, it flew much quicker than the helicopter. The plane came at about the same time of day, between 5 and 6 p.m. It also dropped bombs and fired shots. Again, the Niédéboua quartier was not affected. The second bombing hit the Blanco bar, in the middle of the village. The rebels were about twenty meters from the Blanco bar, at the roundabout in the middle of the village.62
Government forces launched another helicopter gunship attack at the end of December, targeting a fish market and local boats crossing the lake in Menakro, a lakeside village in central Côte d’Ivoire fifty kilometers north of the cease-fire line. This attack prompted a swift response from the French, whose military forces confirmed that at least eleven civilians were killed in the attack. A French military source said, “People were shot at like rabbits.”63 The government claimed that the attack was aimed at rebel troops who were present in the boats and village, but President Gbagbo agreed to ground the helicopter gunships and stop using mercenaries after the French government strongly condemned the incident.64
Despite the government’s commitment to ground the helicopters in December 2002, the helicopters were used again in January and when government forces launched a new offensive on rebel positions along the Liberian border in April 2003. Helicopter attacks targeted Danané, Vavoua, Mahapleu, Bin Houyé and Zouan-Hounien between April 6 and April 16, 2003. This was not the first time they had been used along the border area—Danané, Toulepleu and Bin Houyé were all bombed since January—but this time international agencies on the ground had access to civilian victims from the attacks. While some of the bombings no doubt targeted military objectives, others were clearly indiscriminate or targeted civilians.
Initial helicopter attacks on Zouan-Hounien—aimed at military objectives—had taken place on April 6. Most of the civilian population fled after these attacks, leaving only a small community sheltering in the Catholic Mission, which included a medical center for the treatment of Burullic ulcer patients.
Following the aerial attack, Liberian and Gueré militias entered the town but soon left, taking most of the remaining Gueré civilians with them. On April 13, rebel forces re-captured the town. Fearing further aerial attacks, the remaining Muslim and northern civilian community took shelter at the Catholic Mission. On April 14, the government helicopters returned and proceeded to launch an intensive fifteen-minute assault on the compound of the Catholic mission, including some fifty rockets, despite the fact that the medical center was clearly visible. Civilians fleeing the attack were shot down by the helicopter according to witnesses. At least four civilians were killed and more than twenty were injured in the assault, mostly sick children who had been receiving treatment in the center. The following day, the remaining patients and staff from the mission fled the area on foot.65 The attack on Zouan-Hounien constituted a serious violation of international humanitarian law, as it was a deliberate attack on civilians in a hospital where no military objective was present.
A further fifty civilians were wounded in the helicopter attacks on Danané and Mahapleu on April 16, according to the medical humanitarian organization Médecins sans Frontières, which treated some of the wounded. Nine children, thirteen women and some elderly people were among the victims treated by the NGO at the Man hospital following the attacks on those areas.66
Despite overwhelming evidence of its deployment of the Mi-24 helicopters, the Ivorian government denied the attacks. The follow-up committee for the peace accords, which included diplomatic representatives of the U.S. and French governments and other officials, visited Danané on April 9 to evaluate the situation. Following the visit, it issued a statement expressing concern over the situation in the west and calling for the Ivorian government to ground its helicopters.67 Following this incident, further helicopter attacks have not been reported, but the government continued to scale up its equipment through May 2003, including through the purchase of Romanian Puma helicopters.68
Government forces were responsible for scores of arbitrary arrests, detentions and “disappearances” in towns and areas under their control. Some of those arbitrarily arrested and detained were released and others were later found dead. However Human Rights Watch fears that some of those detained have been “disappeared” given that a number of people who were last seen in government custody have yet to be accounted for.
It is impossible to provide a definitive number of the “disappeared,” given the massive displacement and flight of foreign nationals that has taken place in the west. Hopefully a number of the people who are unaccounted for will be identified through family tracing in the displaced and refugee camps. Nonetheless, forensics investigation may be required to establish the fate of some of those who were last seen in the custody of government forces.
Witnesses from Vavua described the pattern of arbitrary arrests and detentions to Human Rights Watch. One such account went as follows:
There was no military camp in Vavua before the crisis, but some loyalist forces came to Vavua, after the rebels took Korhogo, towards the end of September. Maybe about 1,000 came to Vavua. They made checkpoints at all the entrances to the town. They would beat Burkinabe, take them away and then you wouldn’t see them again. The military were all Ivorian. The loyalists usually didn’t harass the townspeople, but they did stop men who came to the town from outside, those who came in to buy petrol or other goods. They would stop them and ask them for identity cards, and if you were Burkinabé or Malien, they would beat you and take you out of town. I don’t know exactly what happened to them.
I saw the loyalist soldiers take one man I knew: he was an older man in his sixties, a Malien named Mr. Koné, who was a guard at a store called Des Edines. It was 10 a.m., and I was in the commercial quarter with my friends, when I saw the man in a “karego” [military truck] with at least six soldiers, all wearing green, with automatic weapons. There were two civilians in the vehicle but I only recognized Mr. Koné. He was kneeling with his hands tied behind his back, and the soldiers were holding guns at his neck. The vehicle went in the direction of Seguela.69
In other government-held towns, the armed forces rounded up groups of northern and immigrant individuals, sometimes at night after the curfew, and then detained them without charges. In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, members of the state security forces in Duékoué lied to family members who inquired about a detainee’s whereabouts in early 2003. The victim described his arbitrary arrest and temporary “disappearance” to Human Rights Watch.
At 3:00 a.m, a group of about fifteen gendarmes and military knocked and told me to open the door. I refused, and they said they would shoot the door if I didn’t open it. I opened and they came in and searched the whole place, then took 655,000 CFA from me….They took me to the police station, but when my family came to the station the next day, they said I wasn’t there. I was in the ‘botte.’ A man in the ‘botte’ doesn’t know what’s happening outside. The botte is small if you’re ten people. We were twenty-one people in there….I was there for five days. My boss came to ask if I was there, they refused and said I wasn’t there. My boss offered money to free me, he offered 200,000 CFA….The commander said he was taking us to be killed in Daloa. He said that he called Daloa to give the names to the BAE at the prefecture.
On the way to Daloa, we encountered French forces. The French asked why they were taking us and they said we were assailants…. We were brought back to Duékoué, spent three more days there and then freed. They never say why they bring you. Even when you’re freed, they don’t say why they brought you there, even after a week.70
Human Rights Watch was not able to verify the numbers of and treatment accorded to wounded and captured rebel fighters and sympathizers by the government. However, the very paucity of wounded and captured fighters is troubling. As a general rule, the numbers of captured and wounded in situations of conflict far exceed the number of individuals killed outright. However, there have been far fewer captured and wounded fighters on either side than might have been expected in the Ivorian conflict.71
An article published in mid-December in one of the local newspapers was hardly reassuring on this issue. The last paragraph of the article described the treatment of six captured rebels, individuals who should have been accorded humane treatment in accordance with international humanitarian law. Instead, “[S]ix rebels were captured on the frontline at Blolékin. Undressed and naked as earthworms, they were well tied up like game in a hunt. Thrown down on the meeting place of the FANCIs, each loyalist was able to inflict a correction in the measure of the crimes they had committed against the people of Côte d’Ivoire.” In case the readers had any uncertainty, the first paragraph clarified their fate by stating that all six had been killed after torture.72
On a more positive note, when wounded fighters or fighters who are otherwise “hors de combat”73 have been detained, both sides have permitted humanitarian agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit detention sites.
34 The Ivorian national armed forces (FANCI) include the army, air force and navy. The national forces of law and order include the gendarmes, who have the mandate for law and order in a district, and the police, who maintain law and order in towns. Other units, such as the Republican Guard and the anti-riot police (Brigade Anti-Emeutes, BAE) function more or less as paramilitary units attached to different forces. In peacetime, these different units wear distinctive uniforms, headgear, and insignia. However, Human Rights Watch was repeatedly told that since the beginning of the war, many of the gendarmes and police also donned military fatigues and it was increasingly difficult to distinguish between the various units. Many people would refer to the armed men they witnessed as generic uniformed men or “corps-habillés.”
35 Human Rights Watch interview, Daloa, April 1, 2003.
36 Vincent Deh,“Daloa: L’armée riposte fort,” Notre Voie, October 15, 2002, p. 3
37 Human Rights Watch documented incidents of killings, arbitrary detentions and harassment of transport operators in Daloa, Man, Duékoué and Abidjan. Members of the transport industry appear to have been singled out because they were suspected of moving weapons and other supplies for the rebels.
38 Human Rights Watch interview, Daloa, April 1, 2003.
39 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 21, 2003.
40 AFP, “Plusieurs magasins pillés à Daloa,” le jour, October 18, 2003, p.5.
41 Human Rights Watch interview, Daloa, April 1, 2003.
42 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 21, 2003.
43 Human Rights Watch interview, Daloa, April 1, 2003.
44 Edgar Kouassi, “Daloa vit des jours sombres,” Le Patriote, October 22, 2002, p.2.
45 “Les assailants font mouvement vers Daloa,” 24 heures, October 23, 2003. This article was a transcription of the spokesperson’s comments the previous day.
46 Ibid.
47 United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Côte d’Ivoire: 2002, March 2003, p.4.
48 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 9, 2003.
49 Jean-Claude Kondo, “Un charnier découvert dans une zone rebelle,” le jour, December 7, 2002, p.2.
50 Joan Baxter, “Eyewitness: Ivory Coast mass grave,” British Broadcasting Corporation, December 9, 2002 at www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa (accessed January 26, 2003).
51 Ibid.
52 MPCI declaration on Monoko-Zohi, December 6, 2002, at www.supportmpci.org/comm_archives.htm (accessed May 15, 2003).
53 “Fighting in west Ivory Coast kills at least 150: medical source,” Agence France Presse, December 9, 2002, at www.reliefweb.int (accessed January 26, 2003)
54 Human Rights Watch interview, Mali, February 19, 2003.
55 Human Rights Watch interview, Mali, February 19, 2003.
56 Statement transcribed from Radio Côte d’Ivoire in le jour, December 7-8, 2002, p.2.The statement concluded by announcing a new set of security measures aimed at Abidjan under the curfew hours. The measures included, for instance, a warning that the armed forces would fire without warning on any suspect individuals, a use of force that clearly violates international standards.
57 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 16, 2003.
58 Interviewed in Guinea, January 2003, on file with Human Rights Watch.
59 James Astill, “British mercenaries find new ferocity in Ivory Coast,” The Guardian, February 22, 2003.
60 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 8, 2003.
61 Human Rights Watch interview, Guinea, March 1, 2003.
62 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 9, 2003.
63 Christophe Ayad & Jean-Dominique Merchet, “La Côte-d’Ivoire s’embrase, la France s’embourbe,” Liberation, January 3, 2003, at www.liberation.fr (accessed January 9, 2003).
64 French government spokesperson, press briefing, Paris, January 2, 2003, at www.diplomatie.fr/actual/declarations/pp/20030102.html (accessed May 16, 2003).
65 Inza Kigbafory, “Comment le MI-24 a bombardé un centre anti-ulcère de Burili,” L'Inter, April 22, 2003, at www.presseci.com/linter/archive/1487.html (accessed May 20, 2003) and confidential communication on file with Human Rights Watch.
66 “Scores of wounded civilians in western part of Ivory Coast after military attack,” press release, Médecins sans Frontières, April 17, 2003, at www.msf.org (accessed May 19, 2003).
67 Laurent Banguet, “Fresh fighting in Ivory Coast, despite unity govt’s ‘steps towards peace’”, Agence France Presse, April 19, 2003.
68 “Deux hélicoptères Puma roumains pour le président ivoirien,” Agence France Presse, May 15, 2003.
69 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 8, 2003.
70 Human Rights Watch interview, Duékoué, April 3, 2003.
71 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, April 7, 2003.
72 Edouard Gonto, “Six rebelles tués, Des refugiés libériens en renfort aux FANCI,” Soir Info, December 16, 2003, p.2.
73 Literally “out of combat,” the term refers to individuals who are not actively participating in hostilities and can include combatants who are detained, wounded, sick or have surrendered their arms.
