Summary executions by government forces in other locations in the west Human Rights Watch also documented summary executions of civilians, particularly members of the RDR, by government armed forces in other western towns under government control, including Bangolo, Duékoué and Guiglo. In Bangolo in mid-December, the summary execution of a teacher—and RDR member—was witnessed by at least three people. Two gendarmes came to the house around 14:00. [They] were armed with machine guns and dressed in military uniform. [They] asked his wife if her husband was there. When she said yes, they asked him to come out, then they looked at his identity card and said they were taking him to the gendarmerie. Then one of them said ‘it’s not worth it,’ and shot him in the right arm, then again in the left arm, then in the stomach. He fell. Then they said, ‘No one can touch the body, if anyone touches the body they’ll die. A rebel does not deserve burial.’ For two days the body was in the street, no one dared touch it. Finally his wife paid 15,000 CFA to some Guerés to pick up the body on a stretcher and take it away. They threw it off a bridge on the road to Man. 57 Human Rights Watch also heard allegations that in Guiglo, the municipal authorities “made a blacklist of one hundred forty people” with the names of leaders and members of the UPDCI and RDR, and that “the objective was to kill all the people on the list.”58 As described below in Chapter IX, a number of Burkinabé were also victims of summary executions by government forces in Duékoué and other locations. Indiscriminate and targeted helicopter attacks Human Rights Watch documented two series of helicopter gunship attacks on villages and towns in the Vavoua and Zouan-Hounien regions in early December and mid-April, part of the loyalist offensives on both areas. These attacks were sometimes characterized by the indiscriminate and in some cases direct targeting of civilians. For instance, dozens of civilians were killed when helicopter gunships attacked market places, a medical clinic, and neighborhoods known to have concentrations of foreign nationals accused of supporting the rebels. The MI-24 helicopters used in these attacks were reportedly piloted by mercenaries.59 Indiscriminate helicopter attacks on the Vavoua and Pélézi area: December 2002 The first aerial attack on Vavoua town was the only one of the attacks documented by Human Rights Watch which appeared to target a military objective. In this attack, the fact that the rebels’ military barracks were situated in the city hall, in the middle of the town, contributed to civilian casualties. A forty-nine-year-old Burkinabé market woman from Vavoua described this attack to Human Rights Watch: In late-November, it was a Wednesday, a helicopter came from the loyalists at about 6 p.m. I was in the market when the helicopter came from the direction of Daloa and started dropping bombs on the town. I started running, but I fell down and cut my knees. I went into a store and hid there until things quieted down. The plane dropped bombs on the city hall. The rebels had taken the city hall and sous-prefecture, that was where they had their military camps. The city hall was encircled by a wall, with trucks and weapons in the courtyard. The rebels shot at the helicopter, they managed to get one shot at it before it returned to Daloa. 57 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 16, 2003. 58 Interviewed in Guinea, January 2003, on file with Human Rights Watch. 59 James Astill, “British mercenaries find new ferocity in Ivory Coast,” The Guardian, February 22, 2003. Human Rights Watch 20 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)