12 “They looked at his identity card and shot him dead” Six months of post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire At the beginning of 2011, confrontations took place between security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo and the armed groups in Abobo. On the night of 11/12 January, the latter attacked police officers who were standing watch at the Abobo Town Hall roundabout. The attackers launched rockets at military vehicles, which were set alight. Six police officers were killed. On 7 February 2011, the police station of district XIV (14e arrondissement) was surrounded and attacked in the middle of the afternoon. In response to these attacks and because they were no longer able to enter some parts of Abobo, forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo shelled the district killing several people, including women and children. On 28 March 2011, faced with Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to step down, forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara launched a general offensive on several fronts, in the west and centre of the country and, in three days, occupied almost all the areas held by forces loyal to Gbagbo. The opposing forces fought for control of Abidjan, starting on 31 March 2011. Exchanges of fire from heavy weapons paralyzed the country's commercial capital for more than a week, forcing the population to flee or remain at home, often without food, and sometimes even without water and medicine. On 4 April 2011, soldiers of UNOCI and the French Force Licorne started to bomb the artillery deployed by troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo as well as some other places, such as the RTI. UNOCI and France based their intervention on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1975 (2011) – adopted on 30 March 2011- which gave the authorization to UNOCI to "use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians (…) including to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population."5 On 11 April 2011, forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, supported by French troops, arrested Laurent Gbagbo and his immediate family, who were at the presidential residence and who have been detained since then - many of them outside any judicial procedure - in several locations in the country. Two days later, on 13 April 2011, President Ouattara said it would take "one or two months" to obtain the "total pacification" of the country and to "rid Abidjan and the rest of the country of militias and mercenaries." In the following weeks, in Abidjan, security forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara continued to fight some militia groups close to Laurent Gbagbo in the district of Yopougon. Sporadic fighting continued in early May 2011. Some 60 dead bodies were discovered on 3 and 4 May in Yopougon. The FRCI claimed that they had been killed by Liberian mercenaries and pro Gbagbo militiamen just after the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo in April 2011. By mid-May 2011, the Ivorian authorities announced that at least 220 civilians have been killed in the south-west of the country by militias and Liberian mercenaries who had backed former President Laurent Gbagbo as they retreated to Liberia. This post-electoral crisis led to a serious deterioration of the living conditions of the population, many of whom had to flee their homes. Staple food prices rocketed making each day more difficult for families to get enough food to survive. Moreover, in February and March 2011, Laurent Gbagbo's government twice cut off the water and electricity supplies to the Central, Northern and Western regions of the country held by the FAFN for a few days Amnesty International May 2011 Index: AFR 31/002/2011