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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Mob attacks, burns UN-guarded Ivory Coast camp
ABIDJAN -- An angry mob of about 300 people stormed a UN-guarded refugee camp in Ivory Coast on Friday, killing at least seven of the refugees and looting the shelters before burning them down, officials said.
About 90 per cent of the Nahibly camp, which used to house some 4,500 people, was burnt to ashes in the attack near the western town of Duékoué, said the UN refugee agency's country representative, Ann Encontre.
Most of the camp residents fled to the surrounding forest to escape the attackers, she said. A number of residents were wounded, but exact figures were not immediately available.
One camp dweller was killed with a machete and three are presumed to have died from gunshot wounds, while a fifth victim died in the raging fire, Encontre said. Information on the two additional deaths as well as injuries was not immediately available.
Cyprien Ahouré, co-ordinator of humanitarian activities at the Catholic mission in Duékoué, said nine deaths had been confirmed at the refugee camp and the total could be higher.
He said more than 100 people had sought refuge at the mission, but others were being prevented from entering by a crowd of people who were involved in the attack.
Ivorian officials said the attack was in response to the killing of four residents of Duékoué Thursday night, which locals blamed on camp dwellers after the attackers reportedly fled there.
The UNHCR camp housed people displaced by the violence that erupted after the West African nation's November 2010 election. Thousands were killed in the postelection violence.
The attack reflects persistent political tensions between supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to accept defeat at the polls in 2010, and those of democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara.
The four people killed in the Thursday attack belonged to an ethnic group that largely backed Ouattara, and the camp mostly houses Gbagbo supporters.
Some accused security forces of complicity in the attack on the camp, but a military spokesman dismissed the allegations.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 21, 2012 A1
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