As the conflict continued in the west, a growing number of Ivorian children were recruited.141 A number of young Yacouba reportedly joined the rebels after the ethnic reprisal attacks started, and were reportedly receiving training in a camp near Bin Houyé as of March 2003. The government-allied Liberians also apparently requested that the chiefs of the Gueré villages around Toulepleu give them children for training.142 Killings of civilians Liberian fighters allied to both the government and the rebel groups also killed numerous civilians, often in order to acquire money and loot. In some cases, civilians were targeted based on ethnic affiliation, especially where the Liberians worked in coordination with Ivorian Yacouba and Gueré militias. Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases of violence accompanying looting activity. These incidents sometimes reflected extraordinary cruelty and wanton brutality, such as the following description of a Dioula family who was attacked in Toulepleu by looting Liberian fighters from the MPIGO faction in the first days of their occupation of the town. A seventy-year-old grandmother, two of her middle-aged daughters and her sixyear-old grandson were killed in this attack. A third daughter was shot in the face. Another daughter survived and fled to Guinea. The rebels had said they wouldn’t hurt civilians, so we were surprised when they came and broke the door down and asked for money…. My grandmother was coming out of the shower when the rebels came. One of them told her to “Get back,” and she said, “Get out with your noise of shooting.” He shot her. When they came in the house, my older sister said we were not FPI…. [She went to get money] but she was trembling so much that she was slow. When she gave him the money, he said it was not enough and shot her in the chest. My younger sister was shot in the legs, but she lost so much blood that she died.143 Some of the abuses have also been characterized by the use of knives and machetes as well as automatic weapons. Victims were sometimes mutilated in ways that echoed the abuses of the Liberian war, with body parts cut off and eaten for ritualistic purposes.144 Human Rights Watch received numerous accounts of abuses by both sides, in towns, villages and encampments throughout their western triangle of operation. The Liberian forces would enter the villages and tie up the chief, then demand food and money. If the villagers did not respond adequately, then they would kill some of the villagers.145 Some of the abuses have occurred as part of a pattern of inter-ethnic clashes, as, once begun, the cycle of atrocities by Liberian fighters and their respective Gueré and Yacouba allies spiraled into a series of reprisals and counter-reprisals. “The Krahn-Gio enmity in Liberia has crossed the border,” Human Rights Watch was told. “While Houphouët-Boigny lived, he stopped it, but now this war has revived the old feud, the Doe-Quiwonkpah feud.”146 There have no doubt been numerous victims whose killings have not been documented because they took place deep in the bush, and in small remote encampments. For instance, Human Rights Watch heard several credible accounts of dozens of villages raided and burned in the fighting around Toulepleu, but was not able to verify them. Compiling accurate figures on the total number of victims is therefore an impossible task at present. 141 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, March 28, 2003. 142 Human Rights Watch interview, Duékoué, April 2, 2003. 143 Human Rights Watch interview, Guinea, March 1, 2003. 144 Human Rights Watch interview, Duékoué, April 3, 2003. 145 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 21, 2003. 146 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, March 26, 2003. Quiwonkpah was a Liberian Gio who rose up against Doe, who then repressed the movement with a vengeance, killing hundreds of mainly Gios, mostly in Nimba county. When Charles Taylor initiated his movement in Nimba, he received massive support as a result of these events. See also footnote 104 above. Human Rights Watch 37 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)