Human Rights team to investigate deadly attack on IDP camp in Côte d'Ivoire
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Côte d'Ivoire
A UN human rights team is being dispatched to Côte d'Ivoire on Tuesday to investigate the recent deadly attack on a relocation camp for internally displaced people.
At least seven people were killed and 67 injured in the incident, which took place in Nahibly last Friday. The camp was completely burned to the ground, causing the 5,000 residents to flee.
Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, called the attack "clearly ethnically motivated."
He said two massacres had taken place in the same area in March 2011 which were related to the country's post-electoral crisis.
"One of these reportedly resulted in the deaths of around 100 members of the Dioula ethnic community, and in the other attack, approximately 244 members of the Guere ethnic group, mostly males, were found to have been killed. It appears that last Friday's attack on the IDP camp in Nahibly was targeted at members of the Guere community, and that community is being blamed by the other one, the Dioula community, for an armed robbery which took place earlier on the day and during that armed robbery five people were reported killed.” (Duration: 35″ )
UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has condemned the attack and has encouraged the Ivoirian government to prosecute perpetrators from all political sides through a fair and impartial process.
