MONOKO-ZOHI, Ivory Coast, Dec 7 (AFP) - The powerful stench of death hung
over the Ivory Coast village of Monoko-Zohi Saturday where a mass grave was
discovered with bodies of more victims of the country's 11-week conflict.
The western village, which is normally home to about 1,200 residents,
was half-deserted Saturday. Many shops had been looted and there were
several torched homes, an AFP correspondent at the site reported.
The stench of decomposing bodies permeated the air as locals told horror
stories of the carnage they said government troops were responsible for.
Boureima Ouedraogo, the leader of the Burkina Faso immigrant community
in Monoko-Zohi said "men in uniform" killed some 120 west African
immigrants in the area on November 29 and dumped their bodies into the
grave, uncovered on Thursday by French soldiers.
The grave -- two round mounds, each measuring roughly four metres in
diameter -- was hidden in the undergrowth on the southern outskirts of the
village, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) from the key cocoa-growing town of
Daloa.
The red soil piled on top of the grave barely covered the swollen
bodies.
Villagers speaking to AFP said the attacks were carried out by
government
troops when they briefly captured the village from rebels.
There were few direct witnesses to the events in Monoko-Zohi because the
families of victims fled to the bush, fearing further attacks. But some
residents claimed to have seen the killings.
"They were tied up and then shot with Kalkashnikovs before their bodies
were thrown into the pits," Arouna Ouedraogo, a Burkinabe, said.
"I fled, I couldn't stay," he said. "Twenty-five corpses, including that
of my younger brother, were thrown into the hole. That's what I saw but
maybe there are more."
An AFP journalist saw one deformed body half-sticking out of one of the
pits.
Salifou Zongo, a Burkinabe cocoa planter in his fifties, said
eyewitnesses had told him that Ivorian soldiers stormed into the homes and
shops of immigrants and killed them.
"The soldiers were in uniform and arrived in eight trucks and a tank.
Some youths from the village led them" to the foreigners, said Gambian
national Antoine Mende, quoting other witnesses.
Saidou Laru, 32, said he had a lucky escape.
"A soldier came up me and two of my friends and said 'What are you doing
here?' He started firing on us. I saw my friend fall but I escaped into the
bush."
Koumassi Bangola said the soldiers then ordered local youths to dig a
pit and bury the bodies, which littered the streets.
"Corporal" Charles Bruno, the regional rebel commander, said his men
re-took the village on November 30, the day after the killings allegedly
took place.
Many west African immigrants live in the village, located in cocoa
belt.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of the bean.
Ivory Coast's founder president Felix Houphouet-Boigny welcomed foreign
workers into the country and their labour was largely responsible for
turning the country into a regional economic powerhouse.
But after Houphouet-Boigny's death in 1993, his successor adopted the
policy of 'Ivoirite' or "Ivorianness", which triggered a wave of xenophobia
against immigrants.
The September 19 military uprising, which has divided the country with
rebels controlling the Muslim-dominated northern half, saw a resurgence of
xenophobia and fuelled hate attacks on northerners and immigrants,
especially Burkinabes, whose country was accused by Abidjan of
masterminding the rebellion.
The Ivorian army on Friday denied reponsibility for the mass killings in
Monoko-Zohi, saying the grave was found in a rebel zone.
The insurgents, meanwhile, have demanded an international investigation
into the killings.
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