IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast camp attack victims say U.N. failed to protect them.

Record ID: 182226

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast camp attack victims say U.N. failed to protect them.
  • Date: 24th July 2012
  • Summary: UNITED NATIONS DELEGATION WITH OFFICIALS AND JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (French) NDOLAMB NDKWEY, UNITED NATIONS COORDINATOR, SAYING: "People in the camp know very well the United Nations, and the role that it played to protect them. It's the United Nations force that insured their security. DESTROYED NAHIBLY CAMP TENTS (SOUNDBITE) (French) NDOLAMB NDKWEY, UNITED NATIONS COORDINATOR, SAYING: "It's true that for the people on the site that day it was total confusion, and it makes them rethink their situation and hopes." DESTROYED NAHIBLY CAMP TENTS
  • Embargoed: 8th August 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cote d'Ivoire
  • Country: Ivory Coast
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA4OWOI2VUB7LBF4XZHZUW0GO12
  • Story Text: Victims of an attack on a camp for displaced civilians in Ivory Coast accuse armed United Nations peacekeepers of failing to protect them during a deadly raid last week.
    Victims of an attack on a camp for displaced civilians in Ivory Coast on Sunday (July 22) accused armed United Nations peacekeepers of failing to protect them during a raid that killed seven and wounded more than 50.
    A crowd of about 300 people, many of them young men armed with clubs and machetes, stormed the Nahibly camp early on Friday (July 20) in an apparent revenge attack for an overnight robbery in the nearby town of Duekoue, U.N. sources said.
    Hundreds of former camp residents have now taken refuge at Duekoue's city hall.
    The United Nations and the government, which also had security forces in place at the camp during last week's attack, have traded blame over the incident.
    Sidiki Kehi Dambele, who was wounded in last week's attack, said thugs beat him with clubs after U.N. police had not allowed him to climb on to their truck.
    "They started to tear down the tents, then they said 'Send for gasoline. We're going to burn the tents'. Others took machetes, arms and started to follow us. When they caught me, I had been running to the U.N. police and climbed aboard their truck, but they pushed me away. I fell out. That's when (the mob) caught me. They wanted to kill me. They beat me with clubs," Dambele said.
    Ivory Coast is recovering from a civil war which erupted last year when then President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections in late 2010. About 3,000 people were killed and a million were forced to flee their homes during the conflict.
    Nahibly, which was largely destroyed in Friday's raid, was home to about 5,000 Ivorians who had yet to return home, mainly due to lingering insecurity in the west.
    About 10 soldiers and 10 police officers from Ivory Coast's U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNOCI, were stationed at the camp.
    Reinforcements arrived soon after the violence broke out, the mission said.
    Camp resident Jean Matthieu Taha said he was beaten by young men with sticks in front of the peacekeepers.
    "When they arrived they came with wooden sticks. The injury is on my head, the dioula started to beat me with the sticks. The white people who were there they stopped. When you run away to hide alongside white people from UNOCI and even they chase you away, I don't know why," said Taha.
    UNOCI, tasked by the U.N. Security Council to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence, said its detachment in the camp was intended to provide security for aid workers and their equipment and that its staff had been "surrounded and blocked by the crowd".
    "People in the camp know very well the United Nations, and the role that it played to protect them. It's the United Nations force that insured their security. It's true that for the people on the site that day it was total confusion, and it makes them rethink their situation and hopes," said Ndolamb Ndkwey a U.N. coordinator at the camp.
    Duekoue has long been a flashpoint for ethnic violence aggravated by disputes over land ownership. Human rights investigators say about 800 people were massacred there during last year's conflict.
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