Littered with corpses and other traces of wanton destruction, Bangolo is a ghost town after the latest round of violence in Ivory Coast’s six-month rebel war.
A strong stench of death hangs over the entry to the western town, near the border with Liberia, where a riot of killing took place last week. Depending on who you speak to the killings were carried out by pro-government Liberian mercenaries or by rebels.
Bangolo lies between the key western town of Duekoue, about 35 kilometres to the south and controlled by government forces, and the provincial western capital of Man, held by rebels.
Four corpses lie on the road leading to Bangolo — an old woman lying on her stomach, next to a young couple and a fourth body with open eyes and a deep head wound revealing the skull.
Family photographs lie nearby, scattered by the wind. For Tidjane Konate from the Movement for Peace and Justice (MJP) rebel group holding Bangolo, this was the work of Liberian mercenaries fighting alongside government forces.
”They came at dawn on Friday, wearing large boubous (flowing gowns normally worn by African Muslims) to show they were Dioulas,” he said, referring to a Muslim-dominated ethnic group based in northern Ivory Coast who are accused of backing the rebels.
This ”trick” worked, he said, adding that the ”Liberians” then went on to massacre at least 200 Dioulas, rebels and ”foreigners” — or those who did not speak Guere, the local language in western Ivory Coast.
The Dioula quarter of Bangolo was deserted. Homes had been destroyed or systematically pillaged by the attackers but there were no corpses. ”The corpses were buried by the families of the victims,” Konate said, adding that the killers were ruthless and did not spare women and children and even ”killed a four-month-old baby.”
French military peacekeepers policing a shaky ceasefire between the belligerents have visited the town for an enquiry. According to diplomatic and military sources in Abidjan, at least 60 people were killed in Bangolo and many of the bodies were
mutilated or had their throats slit.
”They killed everyone who was in the house apart from myself. I was in another room,” said Fanta Kone, a young Dioula woman. Mamadou Soumakoro, a young man, added: ”They were in uniform and in civilian clothes, they spoke Guere and English.”
Guere is one of the languages spoken in Liberia, an anglophone country bordering Ivory Coast, which is a former French colony. Soumakoro said the attackers rounded up people and shot them dead, adding that he witnessed the massacres while hiding in a room.
”They killed two of my brothers and burnt their bodies,” said Ahmed, who gave only one name. He pointed to two mounds of burnt flesh with protruding bones.
Many of Bangolo’s inhabitants who had fled to the government-held town of Duekoue earlier said that the locally dominant Gueres and rebels had committed numerous exactions prior to the massacre.
According to a French military source, at the height of the exodus from Bangolo there were some 300 displaced people every hour going through a French military checkpoint near Duekoue. On Friday evening, French military forces intercepted and
disarmed more than 100 Liberians who they said were fighting for the Ivorian government.
The fighters, mainly from the Krahn ethnic group — the Liberian equivalent of the Gueres — acknowledged having led the attack in Bangolo but denied killing women and children and said they only targeted the male population.
The Ivorian army chief of staff denied any links with the intercepted fighters. – Sapa-AFP