minibus waiting outside. They didn’t ask for our papers, they didn’t accuse us of anything. But it was clear they knew we were foreigners. The arrest happened very quickly; they only spent about a minute in the compound. They said things like, ‘you Burkinabé…you came here to look for a little money and now you want to rule us.’ The most serious clashes on December 5, 2000, occurred in the Port Bouet II section of Yopougon. After a gendarme was killed early in the morning during serious clashes between hundreds of RDR supporters and security forces, gendarmes fired into a group of RDR protesters, killing at least thirteen. Later that morning the gendarmes, accompanied by several civilians alleged to be FPI supporters, swept through the neighborhood with bottles of petrol setting fire to many houses, cars, and businesses. At least three foreigners, including a two-yearold Nigerian girl and an eleven-year-old Togolese girl were killed when explosive devices were fired into the densely populated civilian neighborhood. A thirty-year-old RDR supporter who participated in the clashes described how the gendarmes opened fire on demonstrators and later detained and stripped him and two other youths before shooting them. He described how he survived by pretending to be dead:95 The trouble started at around 8-9:00 a.m. in the morning on Tuesday. The police were trying to stop the RDR from demonstrating but we were too many; we were around 500 to 700 demonstrators concentrated in the roundabout leading to the hospital. Then the gendarmes arrived and we all took off running. And then they opened fire at us. At that point I saw about six to eight bodies. About forty of us were captured by different groups of gendarmes. Three of us were captured in my group. They held us for some time, ordered us to remove all our clothes and then forced us to walk into the neighborhood. By this time the gendarmes had already stated burning houses. They asked us to set a house on fire but we refused and then I heard a gendarme with three V’s [a staff sergeant] and a walkie-talkie say, ‘kill them, we don’t want RDR here.’ He seemed to be the one in charge. Then they told the three of us to run and from about ten meters away opened fire. I wasn’t hit but I fell down as if I had been. I saw the bodies of the other two later. Then one of the gendarmes came by and hit me hard with a gun, but I just lay there. Later in the day after things had calmed down I counted thirteen dead bodies lying in the roundabout. A restaurant owner described how gendarmes set fire to his restaurant and other neighboring properties:96 On Tuesday morning at around 8:00 a.m. the gendarmes came back in force. They were firing everywhere. I saw them in black and red berets and with patches from the Marine [National Navy]. At around 1:00 p.m. I opened my window a little and saw about eight gendarmes walking down the street with a ten liter can of petrol, accompanied by several, I think six, guards from the University Hospital of Yopougon, and a few FPI youths. I watched them as they set fire to our neighborhood. First they threw petrol on the kiosk of a Baoule man, a furniture store, and then they came to my restaurant. First the FPI youths broke down the door and stole the music recorder, espresso machine, and some eggs, milk, and oil. Then the FPI and the guards gathered all the chairs together and the gendarmes set them on fire. Then, as my restaurant was burning, one of the gendarmes sprayed it with bullets and continued on up the road. I saw the gendarmes setting fire to so many places: my place, two other houses one of which is owned by a Malian, a big coal truck, and a taxi. Around the same time I saw the gendarmes fire into a house occupied by Togolese people. I heard an explosion and saw the father and three girls 95 96 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 10, 2001. Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 10, 2001. Human Rights Watch 51 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)