Freedom of fear is a human right
Rule of law an obligation of the state

1. Atrocities and alleged ritual murders by fighters from Liberia ^new
   (....)
   Travelling along and across the western border, we learnt from credible witnesses that Liberian mercenaries funded by the Ivory Coast's president-elect have engaged in a systematic slaughter of the local population, mostly members of the Guere tribe, in two districts, Toulepleu and Blolequin.

   The pro-Ouattara forces have murdered pregnant women and lined up the unburied bodies of hundreds of victims along main roads. Survivors have given startling accounts of the slaughter of an estimated 1000 innocent men and women in the border town of Duekoue alone.

   One of the militias working alongside Ouattara's "revolutionary" forces has even adopted the name the Kofi Annan Boys -- a reference to the UN's former secretary-general -- as if to assert some lofty international mandate.

   They are a militia boosted by hired guns from over the border in Liberia and regarded with particular dread by the locals for their macabre taste in ritual murder. Hunting the borderlands at night they have been joined by the Chevaux (horses), another group made up of mercenaries from neighbouring Burkino Faso and Guinea.
   (...)
   April 11, 2011

   
    
2. Child sacrifice on rise in election run-up
   Child abduction, which is already a serious problem in Côte d'Ivoire, may worsen in the run up to presidential elections later this year as political hopefuls using traditional myths of human sacrifice to improve their electoral chances will fuel an already significant market for stolen children, according to the Ivorian police.
   
   "[Child abduction] is something that needs urgent attention especially in the run-up to the election because a lot of things are going to happen like human sacrifices and other rituals where the organs of children will be particularly in demand," said Sergeant Antoine Goua Bi, a spokesperson for the child protection unit of the Ivorian police, who says child sacrifice always increases around election times.
   (...)
   Organ traffickers, who slice out hearts, kidneys, lungs and other body parts for sale (...)
   June 25, 2008 (UNHCR)
   June 25, 2008 (IRIN News)
    

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