24 “They looked at his identity card and shot him dead” Six months of post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire 3.2. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES COMMITTED BY THE MILITIAS SUPPORTING LAURENT GBAGBO For several years, Laurent Gbagbo's government has armed and trained young people in militias. These militias have carried out deliberate and arbitrary killings - mainly of people with a Muslim name or wearing Muslim clothes - with the consent or acquiescence of security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo. Among their victims were many foreign nationals from the sub-region, especially from Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Guinea. The Young Patriots have sometimes colluded with the security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo or acted with their tacit consent. These militias have erected roadblocks at many strategic points in Abidjan, some of them near police stations, and have proceeded to carry out identity controls, hitting, extorting and sometimes killing real or presumed supporters of Alassane Ouattara. It was at one of these roadblocks, two days after the march of 16 December, that two students who attended the Koranic school, Ouali Ouattara and Ambara Ouattara, both aged 21, were killed by members of militias supporting Laurent Gbagbo. A shopkeeper who witnessed the scene told an Amnesty International delegation in February 2011: "On Saturday 18 December [2010], Ouali, who was wearing an ADO T-Shirt, and Ambarra were walking towards one of the roadblocks controlled by the militia. The militiamen checked their identity cards and searched them, then told them they were brothers of Alassane [Ouattara] and accused them of being assailants. They beat them to death with clubs and bricks and also slashed them with their machetes. Then they took off the shoes and clothes of the two dead young men and burned them. They also wanted to burn the bodies but an old man who was passing by told them that was not right. Police officers of the 32e arrondissement (32nd District) of Abobo-Avocatier arrived and fired shots in the air. The bodies were identified by their parents at the mortuary." The violence carried out by these militias increased sharply after Charles Blé Goudé, leader of the Young Patriots, made a speech at a bar in Yopougon (Baron Bar) on 25 February 2011. In this speech, which was filmed,16 Charles Blé Goudé called on the Young Patriots to organize themselves into surveillance committees in order to control access to and from neighbourhoods and "to denounce all foreigners coming into our neighbourhoods". This call was obeyed in districts considered to support Laurent Gbagbo, especially in Yopougon where any foreigner who did not know the neighbourhood risked being attacked and killed. During its investigation in March and April 2011, Amnesty International gathered information on at least ten cases of people beaten up and sometimes burned alive by proGbagbo militias. Two days after Charles Blé Goudé's call, on 27 February 2011, a young man was beaten to death in Yopougon because he did not live in the neighbourhood. An eyewitness told Amnesty International: "I noticed a crowd near the Sicogi, in Yopougon. When I approached, I saw men and women beating up a young man. They were armed with machetes, clubs and bricks. As they hit him, Amnesty International May 2011 Index: AFR 31/002/2011