Sunday, April 10, 2011

Ivory Coast mercenaries 'are burning people alive'

More than 100 bodies, some of them burned alive, have been found in the Ivory Coast in the past 24 hours, the UN said today.

About 60 were killed in one attack and about 40 people in another that appeared to have been carried out by Liberian mercenaries, said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He added that "all the incidents appear at least partly ethnically motivated" and that there were reports of "smaller scale killings in other places that have yet to be investigated".

Some victims were burned while others were thrown down a well.

The International Rescue Committee warned that chaos in the country was escalating, citing an "explosive mix of political, economic and ethnic tension". "Even if the political and military showdown in Abidjan ends today, we're concerned that looting, hostility, bloodshed, reprisal killings and sexual assaults will escalate in communities across the country," said Louis Falcy, the rescue committee's director in Ivory Coast. (read more)

No comments:

Post a Comment