Human Rights Watch was told that “when [the rebels] came the first time, they did not do any damage. They were almost kind. They explained to the people that they didn’t bear a grudge against the villagers, only against Gbagbo, and they had come to liberate the country. But this time when they came back on December 19, they totally changed. They were nastier and it was clear that that they came to commit crimes.”86 The most credible explanation for what was a marked change in the behavior of the rebels is that during the government occupation of Man, the government forces executed numerous civilians, often with the assistance of local civilians, particularly self-defense committee members. Once the rebels recaptured the town, they learned of these abuses and specifically targeted those civilians, many of them self-defense committee members, who had collaborated with the government forces in targeting civilians. Many civilians in Man had fled to the churches for refuge during the days of heavy fighting that preceded the rebel’s re-entry into the town. Displaced civilians at one of Man’s churches, the Bethany center, witnessed the summary execution of two government officials there in late-December. The rebels were mixed—Mandingoes [Liberians], Sierra Leoneans, Senaphous—all speaking their own languages, some speaking French or English. Many wore uniform. Some of them are wearing the uniforms of the corps-habillés, which they took from the bodies of the gendarmes they killed. When the rebels arrived, they said they would not hurt civilians, still, some went and tried to steal things, and sometimes these thieves would be killed by the other fighters. While we were in the Bethany church, the rebels came all the time. They would come in groups of fifteen or so, they would shout and ask ‘Hey, are there any Angolans, and gendarmes, or corps-habillés here?’ The people in the church would say ‘No, no one like that here.’ The rebels wouldn’t bother you if you were a civilian. One day the rebels came and took away two men from the church. One of these men was a former director of primary education…. Someone else in the crowd at the church must have …gone out and informed the rebels that there were two corps-habillés in the church. The rebels came that night, they encircled the church, and they went straight to the room where the man was sleeping. They even knew which room number he was in. They took the two men out of the room and shot them both behind a flowerbed, in the courtyard of the church. I was sleeping when the rebels came, but one of my friends woke me up and told me, ‘The rebels have taken two men and [passes his forefinger across his throat].’ The next morning, everyone in the church went to see what had happened—the bodies of the two men were there on the ground, we saw them, shot in the chest from the front. After that, everyone was afraid to stay in the church and most people fled.87 Sexual violence Human Rights Watch documented several cases of rape committed by the rebel forces and believes that the actual incidence of rape was far higher given that rape tends to be underreported by victims due to the social stigma attached to the crime. In some instances, it is unclear which rebel group was responsible, but it is likely that members of all three rebel groups committed rape and other forms of sexual violence. For instance, when the rebels returned to the Man area in late-December, a number of young women were taken “as wives” by the rebels, probably by members of the MPCI and MJP groups. A family member of some of the victims told Human Rights Watch: Among the people taken from my village were seven women from my family: my nieces, my cousins, and my little sister. They were taken between the 24th and 26th of December. The youngest were forced to be the wives of the rebels, the others had to cook. They stayed with the rebels for ten days. Then the rebels told them they were free to go because another group of rebels, those of MPIGO, would come to replace them.88 86 Human Rights Watch interview, Duékoué, April 2, 2003. 87 Human Rights Watch interview, Guinea, March 1, 2003. 88 Human Rights Watch interview, Duékoué, April 2, 2003. Human Rights Watch 28 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)