For Immediate Release:
Côte d’Ivoire: Liberian Fighters Attack Civilians
U.N. Security Council Should Take Action

(New York, April 14, 2003) – Government and rebel groups are responsible
for serious human rights abuses against civilians in western Côte
d’Ivoire, and Liberian combatants are fighting on both sides, Human
Rights Watch said today in an open letter to the United Nations Security
Council.

The U.N. Security Council is holding consultations on Cote d’Ivoire on
April 15. Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to establish a
human rights monitoring mission with a field presence in Côte d’Ivoire,
and to call on neighboring states to keep their borders open to refugees
from the war.

According to recent Human Rights Watch research, both government and
rebel forces in western Côte d’Ivoire are responsible for massacres of
civilians, rape, reprisal killings and systematic looting. Liberian
combatants fighting on both sides are committing many of the abuses.

“Liberian fighters are playing a major role in this war, and civilians
are paying the price,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of
Human Rights Watch’s Africa division. “We’ve seen this pattern before in
West Africa. The Security Council needs to act now to prevent any
further deterioration in Cote d’Ivoire.”

Takirambudde said that the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone had
shown the same pattern of targeting civilians, and warned that the war
in western Côte d’Ivoire threatened a similar degree of civilian
suffering.

Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council to encourage the West
African peacekeeping force known as ECOFORCE and the French military to
protect civilians. The United Nations should also urge neighboring and
regional states to cooperate with the Special Court in Sierra Leone with
regard to indicted individuals.

To read the Human Rights Watch letter, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/04/cisc041403ltr.htm [2]

For more information, please contact:
In Brussels, Leslie Lefkow: +32-2-732-2009
In Washington D.C., Janet Fleischman: +1-212-612-4325
In London, Urmi Shah: +44-20-7713-2788

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Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
Phone: +1-212-216-1834
Fax: +1-212-736-1300
http://www.hrw.org/africa/index.php [3]
en français, http://www.hrw.org/french/africa/ [4]