A UN report said that death squads responsible for...

A UN report said that death squads responsible for executions in Ivory Coast were linked to government officials in the country. The report compiled by the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, who went to Ivory Coast in December 2002 to investigate charges of human-rights abuses by government and rebel forces, stated that "the death squads are made up of elements close to the government, the presidential guard and a tribal militia of the president's ethnic group." According to the report, the bodies of executed people were found in a forest near Abidjan, Ivory Coast's main city, and the death squads had lists of people targeted for killing. The Ivory Coast government had repeatedly rejected allegations that it had links with death squads and had accused northern rebels of killing government supporters in Abidjan to destabilize the country.