Rights group deplores abuses

The Ivorian human rights league, LIDHO, deplored, in a statement issued on 9 February, abuses perpetrated by security officials against foreigners in Côte d'Ivoire, and reported over the past few weeks by various media organisations in Côte d'Ivoire and neighbouring countries.

LIDHO (Ligue ivoirienne des droits de l'homme) said members of all the security forces extorted money from their victims, "sometimes seize and even destroy identity documents" and subject people to degrading treatment, especially at the numerous checkpoints along the country's roads.

"Foreigners who, because of the socio-political situation marked by insecurity, decide to go back to their countries of origin ... are purely and simply stripped of their belongings," it added.

The human rights group further noted that detainees were sometimes stripped, paraded before television cameras or in public, and beaten in temporary places of detention.

LIDHO also condemned an attack on 4 February against security forces in the border town of Ouangolodougou, in which a policeman was killed and a gendarme seriously wounded.