ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — A new mass grave containing 29 bodies has been found in a restive suburb of Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital, according to a resident who said the victims were killed in the aftermath of a political standoff that plunged the country into violence.
U.N. investigators said on Friday that they were investigating the reports of a new mass grave.
Yopougon resident Brahima Bakayoko said late Saturday that militants loyal to arrested strongman Laurent Gbagbo swept through the neighborhood amid celebrations over Mr. Gbagbo’s April 11 arrest. He said the militants targeted members of two ethnic groups that supported democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara, the Dioula and the Baoule.
“Here, they killed two youths of the Baoule, and they forced us to bury them in the same tomb,” he said, adding that he counted 29 bodies in the grave.
An Associated Press reporter visited the site late Saturday and spoke with other residents who said their family members were killed. They did not give their names.
The U.N. human rights office in Geneva announced Friday that their investigators were headed to a soccer field in Yopougon believed to be the site of a new mass grave.
“We are told that there is a vast field that is used to play soccer. It is now an open-air cemetery,” said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast.
Yopougon had voted in large numbers for Mr. Gbagbo. His militias are believed to have taken cover in Yopougon, and the neighborhood was the scene of pitched battles until Thursday, when Mr. Ouattara’s military spokesman announced that the area had been brought under control.
Mr. Toure said it was not known if the dead were killed by Mr. Gbagbo’s forces or if they were Gbagbo supporters slain in reprisal killings by forces loyal to Mr. Ouattara. Human rights groups have detailed massacres by the forces backing Mr. Ouattara, who swept the country, coming in from the north, east and west.
Judicial officials began questioning Mr. Gbagbo on Saturday over human rights abuses committed while he was in power.
Mr. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power after losing a November poll sent the West African nation into a spiral of violence. More than a 1,000 civilians were killed, first by the army controlled by Mr. Gbagbo and later by a former rebel group allied with Mr. Ouattara that seized control of the country and toppled Mr. Gbagbo.
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