Death toll in Côte d'Ivoire post-electoral violence over 1,000 - UN

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Death toll in Côte d'Ivoire post-electoral violence over 1,000 - UN

2011-05-27 06:49:23 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- Post-electoral violence in Côte d'Ivoire that began last December has killed more than 1,000 people in the western part of the country before it came to an end last month, the United Nations (UN) said on Thursday.

According to a report by the UN's peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), which was presented in Abidjan, 103 of the 1,012 slain people were women and 42 were children, and at least 505 of the victims were killed in western city of Duékoué.

The numbers were the result of an investigation by a team of UN experts covering the period from December 2010 to April, said Guillaume Ngefa, the interim head of UNOCI's Human Rights Division.

Last December, nation-wide violence erupted when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after he lost the UN-certified presidential run-off election in November to Alassane Ouattara, who was finally sworn in earlier this month after Gbagbo's surrender in April.

The UN report cited several human rights violations linked to clashes between the Defense and Security Forces, militias and mercenaries, on the one hand, and the Republican Forces of Côte d’Ivoire and traditional hunters, on the other.

Ngefa noted that a number of civilians also committed acts of looting and reprisals.

Earlier this month, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that despite the end of the post-electoral crisis, the humanitarian situation in Côte d'Ivoire remained "alarming" for tens of thousands of civilians.

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