COTE D'IVOIRE. KILLINGS, TORTURE AND RAPE GO UNPUNISHED ON BOTH SIDES OF THE FRONT LINE

more human rights violations including summary executions, politically motivated arrests, torture and rape were taking place across war-torn Cote d'Ivoire according to a UN report. The report, spanning a three month period from June 2005, found that the human rights situation continued to raise alarm.
Things took a serious turn for the worse in the cocoa-growing western region, where in late May and early June, a spate of ethnic-motivated revenge killings left some 70 people dead and tens of thousands of villagers temporarily displaced. Women and children were among those disemboweled and beheaded in the violence. And with tensions unresolved, the risk of more killings remained.
Violations were reported in both the government-controlled south and rebel-held north, as well as from within the so-called zone of confidence, which was monitored by some 10,000 UN and French peacekeepers with the job of keeping the warring armies apart. Though patrolling peacekeepers made arrests, when the criminals were handed over to the respective rebel or government authorities they were typically released without charges or punishment, according to the UN. The situation in the government controlled south was no better. In late July, unidentified attackers opened fire on a police station in the government-controlled town of Agboville, killing several members of the security forces. These outbreaks of violence sparked a wave of politically motivated arrests, beatings and detentions, the report said, while security forces had increasingly carried out summary executions of thieves in the main city of Abidjan in a bid to combat rising crime.