About three minutes later a gendarme officer with a walkie-talkie and three bars [a captain] came up and yelled at the gendarme who’d stopped us saying, ‘leave them now, they’re wounded.’ The driver explained that the young wounded woman had been taken away but the chief just said, ‘shut up, don’t talk so much.’ The ambulance driver insisted, explaining that she was also wounded but the officer threatened that if we didn’t leave just then, he’d kill us all. We didn’t see the girl after that and I don’t know where they took her. On December 4, a forty-one-year-old businessman participating in the RDR march to the stadium, fled into the largely Ébrié neighborhood of Anonkoua with several other demonstrators after being fired on by gendarmes. He described how a young RDR militant had his throat slashed by a group of youths in the presence of three gendarmes.84 As we marched by we found that the Ébriés had blocked the route. I saw they were armed with machetes, hunting rifles, and pieces of wood. There was a confrontation for fifteen minutes or so—we wanted to continue marching and they refused to allow us to pass. At one point they started firing and two of our people were wounded. Then two trucks of gendarmes arrived. There was gunfire and confusion and we all ran helterskelter. Two other marchers and I were forced to run into the Ébrié neighborhood. We knew they’d be hostile but really had no other choice. The Ébrié didn’t seem to notice me perhaps because I was dressed well, had glasses, and had been able to keep myself clean. I started walking slowly, like I had nothing to hide, and gave the ‘V’ sign to let them believe I was an FPI supporter. I guess I didn’t look like the typical RDR militant. But about five meters behind me, one of the RDR militants who’d fled with me had black charcoal on his face, and so was easily identified. As I walked away I kept glancing back and saw that he’d been caught by about five Ébriés. The one who caught him threw him to the ground and then another hit him repeatedly with a thick piece of wood. Then a third came by with a machete and cut his throat. They were yelling, ‘he’s RDR, he was in the march!’ The boy was begging and yelling, ‘please, please, I’m sorry.’ There were about fifty or so Ébrié youth around, a few of them with hunting rifles, and nearly all the rest had machetes. The three that killed him all had white chalk on their face; in their tribe it’s a sign of war. From the time they caught him to the time they killed him was only about two minutes. As the boy was being killed a group of three gendarmes was running through the neighborhood. They were about ten meters away but they definitely saw when the boy was being killed. After he was dead they came a bit closer to look at the corpse. Then together with the Ébrié youths, they started patrolling around together looking for other marchers. They were definitely working together; the Ébrié were indicating where they thought the RDR youths had run. The gendarmes had time to intervene to stop the killing of the RDR youth, but they didn’t. After seeing this I started trembling. I felt sick. But I just tried to control myself walking slowly, confidently, until I could get away. Rape and Sexual Abuse Human Rights Watch documented significantly more cases of sexual abuse against women from the December wave of violence than during the October presidential elections. The incidents, including rape, gang-rape, and penetration with truncheons, sand, and branches, were perpetrated by police and gendarmes, and by FPI supporters with the complicity of the security forces. All the victims were RDR supporters or women from northern ethnic groups. They were sexually abused in the street, within the ENS technical institute, and within 84 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 10, 2001. Human Rights Watch 44 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)