“They looked at his identity card and shot him dead” Six months of post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire 47 “When the rebels arrived at the village on Friday 1 April, they fired in the air and chased the men. They pushed the women into a house containing two rooms. They demanded money, one of them lifted my skirt up, stuck his fingers in my vagina and threw me to the ground. One of them put his foot on my hips so I couldn’t move, while a second one spread my legs and a third one raped me. They threatened to kill us if we screamed.” Another woman, a rape victim on that same day in the same village, said: “They accused us of supporting Laurent Gbagbo. They told us to lie down and hit us with a Gbinhin, (woven liana), and with palm branches. They told us to sing ‘ADO, solution'. Two of them took it in turns to rape me.” Some women were detained for several days and raped repeatedly. For example, eight women were taken from their homes in Duékoué. One of the victims told Amnesty International: “On Tuesday 29 March, I was with the old people in a house in the Quartier Carrefour when the door was broken down. Some men in fatigues told us to go outside and join a group of people. They wanted to kill us, but one of them said that he needed some women. A group of eight women and eight children (four girls and four boys) was gathered together. They told us to carry their booty, they wanted to take everything – clothes, saucepans and plates. They pointed their guns at us, some of them went in front of us and some followed us with their guns. Between 12pm and 8pm, we walked until we arrived at Y. We were put together in a house. One of them held a knife and threatened to kill me if I did not have sex with him. He ripped my clothes and raped me in front of everyone. While they were raping the women, some of them shouted and insulted the Guérés: ‘We are going to kill you Guérés, we are going to marry you and take your land’.” These eight women were kept in the house for ten days, during which time they were the victims of sexual violence and repeated rape. Index: AFR 31/002/2011 Amnesty International May 2011