“disappeared.” Assaults and Threats on Wounded and those Assisting the Wounded On numerous occasions, gendarmes, police, and FPI supporters impeded the work of local Red Cross and other medical personnel trying to treat and evacuate the wounded. In October, a private car carrying a wounded Dioula youth and his doctor was stopped by a mob of FPI supporters in Gbagbo T-shirts. The mob beat up all the occupants, including the wounded man and his doctor, and later set fire to the car. In December, an ambulance carrying five wounded RDR supporters was stopped in Cocody by some twenty gendarmes backed up by a large group of FPI supporters. The gendarmes ordered the wounded to get out of the ambulance, threatening to kill them and the ambulance personnel if they refused to do so. One of the women patients was then dragged away and raped by at least two of the FPI youths in full view of the gendarmes. In at least three other instances, gendarmes and police detained Red Cross ambulances and threatened to kill the wounded RDR supporters inside. At least one government hospital refused to treat wounded RDR supporters. Religious Persecution Several mosques were attacked and burned by FPI mobs, while others were the object of police and gendarme round-up operations. Muslims were often targeted for detention and in some cases extrajudicially executed on account of their religion. Once in detention Muslims were often insulted and forced to break Muslim rules. This was particularly true in December during the holy month of Ramadan. A few churches also came under attack by RDR mobs, resulting in destruction and loss of property. In October, the Aicha Niangon-Sud mosque in Yopougon was completely destroyed after being attacked by some 200 FPI youths. The police called to protect the mosque arrested the thirty-three Muslims who had remained inside and then stood by while the mosque was ransacked and burned. In December, seventy-four Muslims and their iman who had gathered for afternoon prayers in the Avocatier mosque were rounded up and detained for several days within the National Police Academy of Cocody. In a similar operation, some twenty-five Muslims and their imam were arrested by police as they inspected the damage caused to the Sofogia Mosque after it was burned by a FPI mob shortly before. While in detention, groups of Muslims were doused with urine and dirty water, forced to break their fast, refused the right to pray, or told to pray and then beaten as they bowed down. Elderly Muslims and imams were forced to pull out their facial hair and watch as sacred Korans were destroyed by police. Mob Violence Fighting between rival militants from the FPI and RDR parties resulted in numerous deaths. With militants from both sides armed with wooden sticks, machetes, iron bars, nail studded clubs, rocks, and in a few cases hunting and automatic rifles, political protests turned into pitched battles between militants of both sides, and degenerated into ethnic and religiously motivated mob violence. In many cases, paramilitary gendarmes and police actively sided with FPI mobs or stood by while they committed serious abuses such as rape and murder. While militants from the FPI and RDR spontaneously took to the streets, their leaders did little to try to rein in their supporters. The most serious of these attacks occurred in October within Blokosso neighborhood, an opposition stronghold inhabited by ethnic Ébriés from the south. During the attack a mob of opposition supporters killed at least six unidentified young men. In Yopougon, FPI supporters burned alive a Muslim man. In Anonkoua, another Ébrié neighborhood, a man in a Muslim robe was attacked with a hammer and seriously wounded, and a carpenter of Malian descent on his way home from work lost his left leg and was blinded after a brutal attack. In December, an RDR supporter who had fled into the neighborhood to escape gunfire was hacked to death by Ébrié youths in full view of at least three gendarmes. In October, RDR supporters in Anyama burned alive a civil servant, beat up FPI supporters, looted homes, and ransacked a local market. In Abobo, groups of RDR supporters forced their way into the homes of opposition Human Rights Watch 8 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)