159 Burkinabé, 100 Malinké, 68 Malian, 30 Baoulés, 6 Guinean, and 5 Béninois victims,
among others.53 Several of the worst atrocities committed by forces on both sides occurred
in western Côte d’Ivoire, including the March 25 massacre by pro-Gbagbo militia groups
and mercenaries of at least 70 northern Ivorians and immigrants, including men, women,
and children, who had taken refuge in the Bloléquin prefecture; and the March 29
massacre of several hundred mostly Guérés by pro-Ouattara forces in Duékoué.54
Faced with intense fighting and grave human rights violations by armed forces on both
sides, around 200,000 people fled to Liberia during the crisis,55 primarily from western
Côte d’Ivoire. A majority of these refugees either supported or were from ethnic groups
which largely supported Gbagbo during the 2010 election.56 Hundreds of thousands more
people were displaced internally within Côte d’Ivoire; the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported in June 2011 that the greatest concentration
of internally displaced persons (IDPs) was in western Côte d’Ivoire.57
This report focuses on what happened to the land of people in western Côte d’Ivoire
displaced by the post-election crisis. Many remained displaced for months after the
conflict’s May 2011 end, with at least 58,000 registered refugees in Liberia as of August 2,
2013.58 In interviews with Human Rights Watch, they expressed concern for their security
and livelihoods should they return to Côte d’Ivoire.59 These concerns have been
amplified by the sporadic targeting of typically pro-Gbagbo populations for abuses even
after the conflict, primarily by the country’s military, the Republican Forces of Côte
d’Ivoire (FRCI), and allied fighters.60 In a particularly egregious example, some FRCI
53 Ibid.
54 Human Rights Watch, “They Killed Them Like It Was Nothing”, pp. 62-63, 87-90.
55 See
UN OCHA, “Mid-Year Review of the Consolidated Appeal for Liberia 2012,” July 12, 2012,
http://www.unocha.org/cap/appeals/mid-year-review-consolidated-appeal-liberia-2012 (accessed August 29, 2013), p. 1.
56 Human Rights Watch interviews with humanitarian officials, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia, April 2011 and December 2012.
57 “More than 300,000 still displaced in Côte d’Ivoire; 200,000 remain overseas,” UNHCR News Stories, June 14, 2011,
http://www.unhcr.org/4df7786d6.html (accessed August 29, 2013) (reporting 132,188 IDPs in western Côte d’Ivoire).
58 UNHCR,
“Refugees in Liberia: Information Sharing Portal,” http://data.unhcr.org/liberia/regional.php (accessed
August 29, 2013).
59 Human Rights Watch interviews, Grand Gedeh County, December 2012.
60 See Human Rights Watch, “A Long Way From Reconciliation”: Abusive Military Crackdown in Response to Security Threats
in Côte d’Ivoire, November 19, 2012, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/11/18/long-way-reconciliation; Amnesty International,
“Côte d’Ivoire: The Victors’ Law: The human rights situation two years after the post-electoral crisis,” AI Index: AFR
31/001/2013, February 26, 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR31/001/2013/en (accessed August 29,
2013); and UNOCI, “Summary of UNOCI weekly press conference (11 August 2011),”
“THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH”
24