Guys in military uniform arrived that morning at 9 and said that they were searching for weapons. Eight of them entered my house. They yelled, "Give us your money or we'll kill you. It's you who took care of the militias here." They took 50,000 CFA (US $115), my mattress, my tank of gas - everything of value, they took.

The guys were big, these were FRCI military men with clean uniforms. They had a clear leader among them. He said, "You the Bété, the Guéré, the Attié, it's you who made this war. Where are the youth [males], we're going to kill them all."

They went door to door and pillaged all of value. They stayed for hours. When the goods started piling up, they forced me to load their cars - to load televisions, refrigerators... I'd have a big can of cooking gas on my head and another in my hand. It went on and on. I loaded up a pickup truck, a sedan, then another sedan, all stuffed full of everyone's valuables. They left nothing.

As I was making my seventh trip, their leader, a large man, grabbed me and pulled me into where one of my neighbors slept. The neighbor had left Abidjan, but the FRCI had broken down his door. He threw me on a mattress and told me to open my legs. I said, "Mister, please, not like this." I begged him to let me go, but he struck me and told me to shut up. He forced himself on me, and he raped me. He kept me there, raping me, for more than an hour. He was violent the whole time, by the time he finished I was bleeding from between my legs. The whole time, the other FRCI were still pillaging. They knew what he was doing, they walked by. He was their leader though. I heard them call him Commander Téo.

After he finished abusing me, he had his Kalash [rifle] on him and he tried to ram it into me. I closed my legs and it smashed into my thigh, a mark is still there. He laughed and said "well done" and walked out of the room.

As I finished loading their vehicles after I was abused, they were still searching house to house. Several houses down, they found a bunch of young men hiding. As I was going back and forth to their cars, I saw the men had been stripped and made to lie down on my street. I counted them, they were 18. A few of the FRCI stayed with them, yelling at them about being militia - they weren't militia, they were just youth from the neighborhood. All the militia had fled by then.

I finished loading the cars around 2 p.m.; there was no room left in any of them. The soldiers talked about what to do with the prisoners, as I was finishing with the last stolen goods. One of them said, "We didn't come to waste time, we came to kill" and another agreed, "We can't lose time, we don't have space to take them, let's finish the job and go." Then they opened fire - the youth were lying down on the ground, naked except for underwear. They fired back and forth across them, killing them all right there. Then they drove off.

I couldn't stay there anymore. As I was leaving Koweit, all around there were bodies. I saw dozens. It was 3 in the afternoon when I got out of there. I came across an old man and asked him if I could clean myself in his house. Soon after, another group of FRCI came to his house. One said, "Hand over your money or you're dead." I said, "They've just come from taking everything I have. All my money, all my valuables. I have nothing left to give you." He slapped me, but let me go. The old man handed over his money, and then that group of FRCI pillaged his house as well.

They searched house by house on the day the FRCI were trying to take the Marine Base [May 4 and 5]. They arrived in 4x4s, pickup trucks, Kias, many had "FRCI" written on the side. There were dozens of soldiers. They thought all of us, the Bété, Guéré, or Goro youth, were militia. They seized three of us from the house I was hiding in, myself and two of my brothers. They took my youngest brother, who is 21, and demanded his ethnic group. He said he was Bété. Two of them grabbed his legs, another two held his arms behind him, and a fifth one held his head. Then a guy pulled out a knife, said his mystical prayer, and slit my brother's throat. He was screaming. I saw his legs shaking after they'd slit his throat, the blood streaming down his body. It was worse than you'd kill an animal. I couldn't turn away. It was my brother. As they were doing it, they said that they had to eliminate all of the Patriots that had caused all the problems in the country.

Then they turned to me and asked my ethnic group. I said Dioula, because I can speak Dioula. They knew I wasn't, but it was enough to not kill me. My other brother was scared; he knew he was next, so he started to run. One of them fired his Kalash; he fell down dead immediately. They then came back to me and said I was militia. They beat me with their guns, with their fists. They kept demanding that I say that I was militia, that they'd only stop if I said so. Eventually I relented and said I was. They loaded me up in a cargo truck and took me to the 16^th precinct (police station). They had killed other youth right then in the neighborhood. It didn't seem to make sense who they killed and who they took.

They got to Yaosseh around 1 or 2 in the afternoon; there was shooting everywhere. It lasted for a couple hours, and then there was calm. When it picked up a second time, I decided to leave. The whole neighborhood was fleeing. As I passed by the Parliament [an assembly point of the Young Patriots], there were lots of bodies outside. I don't know if they were killed in battle or executed.

We stayed away for several hours, but I had nowhere to sleep so I decided to go back home. I was with my younger brother, who was 22. I was ahead of him when I heard a gunshot. I turned around and he'd been hit in the leg, he'd fallen down. Then four of the FRCI came out and grabbed him. They were all in military uniform. One of them said, "Slit his throat." And they did, right in front of me. I cried, and one of them said, "Lady, we have no business with you. It's the militia we're after." I kept crying, saying that my brother was no militiaman. Then one of the others said, "You're the women guarding the militia. Show us where the others are, or we'll kill you," and he slapped me and then showed a knife that was still dripping with my brother's blood. I said I don't know any militia, I'm just trying to go home, and the other soldier told him to leave me.

I hid at a neighbor's house. The 16^th precinct where they were based is right by where we are. I saw them coming into the neighborhood that night, shooting. I saw them kill two more young men they'd caught that night. They shot them at point-blank range. I left the neighborhood the next morning.

Two days later, I went to see my house. It had been completely pillaged, nothing was left. That day, our neighborhood buried four more youth right in front of me. Another five bodies were strewn on the street.

I still don't know where my husband is. My brother was killed in front of me, and my husband has been missing since the day they attacked Yaosseh. His phone is off. I assume he, too, is dead. I have nothing.

When they entered, they said, "We're only here for the boys." They were all in military fatigues. They were many, scores of them. I could see FRCI written on some of the cars, pickups, and 4x4s that they'd arrived in. They came from the 16^th precinct that is nearby. I know lots of people who saw killings, but in front of me they killed three - two by gunshot at point-blank range and a third, my sister's husband, by slitting his throat....

As they were killing, they said, "You who killed our relatives, we're going to kill you also." But it wasn't our boys who are still there that did the killing. All of those guys have left, they fled.... After that day, we knew the neighborhood wasn't safe for the males, so we fled. We can't go home.

My neighbor who was a medicine vendor was killed in front of me. They trapped him in his house and pulled him out into the street. They argued a little over whether they should kill him and one of the FRCI was against killing him. He said the guy had nothing to do with the fighting; there was no reason to kill him. But his comrade shot him first in both arms and then in the head.

It shocked me when we executed 29 people that we had arrested during the search of the neighborhood Millionaire [Yopougon]. That day, Commander Chérif was really angry because he had lost six men during combat with the militia in Abobo-Doumé [the neighborhood near Youpougon where the Marine Base is located] The head of our unit asked Chérif by phone what we were to do with the prisoners, and the order came to us, with Chérif directly mentioned, "You haven't arrested anyone, I don't want to see a single prisoner." Ben Laden [the nom de guerre of Ousmane Coulibaly] was there at GESCO at the time, but he didn't watch the execution, he left the place just before.

We brought them to GESCO and executed them several meters away on the side of the road. We killed some five at a time, some four at a time, after lining them up. We didn't even put blindfolds over their eyes, they watched it all. They cried and begged us to let them live, saying they had nothing to do with the militias. Some were killed by machine gunning across them; others were killed by automatic pistols at point-blank range. They were all youth, in their 30s and in civilian dress. I promise you that no one can say what crime these men had committed. They were arrested simply because they had an appearance that showed them as suspects of either being militiamen or those that tell the militia about our movements. I wasn't happy about [being part of this], but I was only executing orders.

I think the bodies were thrown into the Banco forest. I have a comrade who was part of those that threw out the bodies. The military heads told us after to never tell this story and that all of the civilian deaths would be identified with the militias.

I killed men before in Yopougon, but it was men armed and shooting at us as well. When one fires on unarmed men that are begging for their life, it's difficult to forget. In Yopougon, we speak often of a lot of "disappeared," these are for the most part executions like those that I've described. The FRCI arrested a lot of militiamen and executed them. We've also dug mass graves in order to bury certain bodies in Yopougon at night. There have been too many civilian and military deaths here in Yopougon.

As we were coming out of the bush onto the main road, there were five FRCI waiting. One of them had an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] that he pointed at us, and he told us not to move, to lay down immediately. We all lay down. This was around 2 or 3 p.m. They forced us to walk to the 16th precinct. A few had on FRCI T-shirts with military pants; others were in full military uniform.

At the station, Koné, an FRCI soldier, was the person you met upon arrival. He asked each person whether he was a militia. We were surrounded by people with guns. As we responded, they inspected our hands and elbows, saying they could tell if you'd ever picked up a weapon. I said no, and I guess my answer satisfied them. Four others, though, were executed in front of us that night. They said their fingers were calloused, so they were militia. There was one guy that did the executions. He put on a balaclava and shot them at point-blank range, it was done one-by-one in front of everyone. The people were begging for forgiveness, saying that they weren't militia, but the guy shot them anyway ... a bullet each time in the person's chest.

They told us to move the bodies outside by the bridge, then Koné poured gas on the bodies and set them on fire. I was there for a week. They didn't kill anyone after the first day.

The guy that you saw burning the other day was one of the militia involved in burning alive two people on February 25. Yesterday, we spotted him walking in Yaosseh. When he saw us, he started running. We chased and caught him around 9 a.m., then handed him to a group of FRCI from the 16^th who were on patrol.

We went with them to the station, and the FRCI did their work. They executed him. When we first arrived with him, I said that I knew he was militia, that he had taken part in burning alive two of our comrades on February 25. The FRCI asked him if this was true, and he denied it. So they tortured and beat him, asking again and again whether he had raised a gun during the crisis, whether he had killed. Eventually he said it was true. They kept beating him and asking for him to give the phone number of his accomplices. Eventually he did. The FRCI guys called another militiaman and tried to set a trap. But the guy never came. The militiaman begged for forgiveness after they'd finished torturing him but an FRCI guy said, "Those that kill, those that burn, they can't live." Then the FRCI finished their work, they did justice, executed him with two shots. We were there for all of it. After he was killed, his body was set on fire across the street.

Since the end of April, after the FRCI liberated the area, I've been involved in the capture of five militiamen. Two at one time, then one three different times. The FRCI executed them all. Two were thrown over the bridge, one body was left in the neighborhood, and the other two were killed in the 16^th precinct.

Some of the militiamen are coming back, testing whether they can live with the people. But we haven't forgotten what they did. If you're [a Gbagbo supporter] that never picked up a gun, you can live here. But those who picked up guns, they will pay if they return.

I lived in the university housing because I'm a student from out of town, without family in Abidjan. I was never among FESCI. The Republican Forces arrested me and took me in a cargo truck from the 2^nd precinct in Port Bouët. There were 10 of them, two of us students. Four of them beat me repeatedly over three hours, and one took out a knife and cut down my shoulder and back [wound seen by Human Rights Watch]. As they beat me, they kept demanding where the guns were. I told them I'd never taken part in FESCI, but they didn't believe me. They threatened to kill me several times.

It was only when someone else from the community came later that night and said I wasn't part of FESCI that they relented. The commander told me to forget what happened, to let it go, and gave me back my two cell phones. We're still threatened though, just because we're students. We can't go back to school, we can't go back to living in the university housing - they were mostly destroyed by the community because of their link to FESCI.

Each day the FRCI pulled us out of the small cell to beat us with their Kalashnikovs. Generally it was two of them; they'd strike you over and over with either their guns or their boots. It would last about five, ten minutes, then they'd leave and come back a couple hours later to do it again. As they hit me they'd say, "Are you going to answer our questions truthfully next time? Are you going to give us information?" Every time I told them that I'd never raised a weapon, but the beatings continued.

On the second day, they put a knife into a fire until it was scorching hot. Then they placed it on my left shoulder, making a cut as well. They demanded, "Are you militia? Where are the arms that have been hidden?" It was the burning that hurt more than the cut - it was the worst pain I've ever felt [wounds, including charred, discolored skin and a long scar on the victim's shoulder, seen by Human Rights Watch].

As I was walking to work [as a security guard] in Wassakara, the FRCI ambushed me, encircling me from all around. They were all in uniforms and wore military boots. They pulled me into an alleyway near Pharmacy Keneya saying that I was Gbagbo militia. I said, "No, no, I'm just going to my job. I'm a guard." They said, "No, you're militia."

They beat me with their Kalashnikovs until I was bleeding from my head. I'm still not right in the head, I constantly have headaches. Then they held me down, two of them grabbed me by my shoulders, two by my legs, and one held open my mouth. One of their guys had pliers, and he ripped out one of my teeth up top. Then he ripped out a second one, but it broke and only part of it came out. They kept demanding, "Where are the weapons you've hidden?" The pain was so much, I couldn't even respond. So they kept going. They took out four from up top and one from below in total. After the first couple, they stopped even asking questions. They yelled, "We're going to kill all of you militia that caused these problems. You're one of Gbagbo's Patriots, we're going to kill you all."

I still can't really eat from all the pain. At night [a month later], blood still comes into my mouth from these wounds.

When they descended upon us, they yelled, "Everyone lay down." Since they had Kalashes, all of them, we had no choice. There were 18 of us there who lay down, 16 of whom were killed. They took our cell phones; one of them said, "Now you won't be able to call ONUCI [UN peacekeepers] anymore." They demanded our names; the first two were Ibrahima and Boubakar. They charged their weapons and one said, "It's you that caught President Gbagbo, you're going to pay. We're going to make a mass grave in your neighborhood today." I was the leader of the group, so I said, "We're youth from the neighborhood; we're unarmed. We're not rebels, we're not politicians, we're just protecting our neighborhood, our women."

One of them put his foot down on me and shot into my back [wound seen by HRW]. It didn't kill me though. I lay there like I was dead, hoping they wouldn't notice and shoot me again. He kicked me, and I didn't respond. I tried to lay like life was completely out of me. After a second kick, he moved to the next person. All seven of them were shooting by this time - killing one after another of us.

When the people in our neighborhood heard the gunshots, many came out to defend us. But the Gbagbo guys fired to push back the crowd. Two more bodies were found by the mosque nearby, people who had tried to come toward us. All of this happened in about 10 to 15 minutes. We were mostly youth, but there were several older men there too.

They were going house by house to kill. They were more than 10 that jumped the fence into my compound. Most were in civilian clothes - all black, a few of them masking their faces with charcoal - but others wore military pants. All had Kalashes. They broke the first door, in which three of my sons were hiding. I was inside the main door, the metal one, which is what saved me. They couldn't break it down like the two wood doors outside in the courtyard. They fired their guns after they jumped over the fence; we all heard and ran to listen and look through a hole in the door.

I watched as they pulled out three of my boys from the first room. They forced them to lay down on their stomachs in the hall here, and then they shot them at point-blank range. First they took everything of value of them, then one opened fire, "pop-pop," on each son. They demanded money, and my sons gave it to them; they demanded clothes, my sons gave it to them; they demanded the TV, cell phones. Everything was given, and yet the militiamen killed them. They yelled that we, the Dioula, were the rebels that had taken over the country. Another said, "It's your brothers that captured Gbagbo yesterday." They pillaged that bedroom, then went to the second door where two more of my boys were sleeping. They broke down that door as well. They immediately shot one who was standing up, right in the chest. One of the attackers then said, "We've taken care of four of them, that's enough, let's go." But another said no. The fifth son was hiding under his bed. They pulled him out and shot him.

Several stayed for more than an hour, while the others continued their killing elsewhere. One of them broke open the fridge and, with the five bodies on the ground, took out couscous, bissap [juice], and ate right there. Crumbs were left on the ground right by the bodies.

Around 2 p.m., we stopped hearing gunfire and we went out. When I saw the bodies, I was in shock, I couldn't even cry. We marched through blood to get out of the compound, the five bodies just laying there. Bullet holes had gone into the concrete floor. We couldn't take the time to bury them, as we didn't know when the militia would return.

When we came back, we were told by a few who had hidden in the neighborhood that the militia had packed the bodies together and then set them on fire. Burn marks were out in front of our compound. We found some remains of bones, but nothing more.

Around 2:30 in the afternoon the militia knocked on the door to the courtyard. Before we could even come to open it, they'd broken it down. My husband raised his hands. They demanded his ethnicity, his identity card. He said, "I'm Dioula," and they said, "Ah, it's you that supports Alassane." He didn't respond, but as they grabbed his identity papers, they shot him in the arm and then his ribs.

Then they told the women to take off their clothes and lay down or they would shoot us. I begged for forgiveness, but one of them called in the others who had remained outside. First, five more came in, then one went out to call in more, and three more came. They all had weapons. The first who entered wore military fatigues and carried a Kalash. The others were in civilian dress and had knives and machetes.

There were three women in the rooms that share the courtyard, and they raped all three of us. One militia raped each woman. They forced us to turn around and then raped us. After they finished, they took everything we owned, left us with nothing.

• Demonstrate that promises of impartial and credible prosecutions of grave crimes are meaningful by ensuring immediate investigations into killings, extrajudicial executions, and torture committed by the Republican Forces in Abidjan. Hold those responsible accountable, including commanders who oversaw the crimes, regardless of their military rank.
• Put commanders implicated in serious abuse on administrative leave, pending investigation.
• Make publicly clear that anyone detained - including former Gbagbo militia implicated in grave crimes - is to be treated humanely in accordance with Ivorian and international law.
• When cordon and search operations are conducted by the Republican Forces, ensure that police, gendarmes, or UN and French peacekeepers are included.
• Seek the assistance of key international donors in assessing the capacity of the Ivorian justice system to prosecute grave crimes and addressing the weaknesses identified.
• Provide complete access to all detention facilities to international monitors and members of the human rights division of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire, including access that allows detainees to describe the conditions of their treatment without the presence or interference of the Republican Forces.
• Cooperate fully with the ICC, including arresting suspects, if the court prosecutor opens an investigation of crimes committed in Côte d'Ivoire.

• To bring light to atrocities committed in the past decade in Côte d'Ivoire, publish the 2004 Commission of Inquiry report when the 2011 Commission of Inquiry report is presented before the Human Rights Council in June. Failure to do so continues to send the signal that certain people deeply implicated in war crimes and other grave abuses, are being shielded from justice.

• Increase significantly patrols, including joint patrols with the Republican Forces, in Yopougon, particularly in vulnerable pro-Gbagbo neighborhoods like Koweit, Yaosseh, Kouté, and Abobo-Doumé.
• Visit detention centers daily, particularly in Yopougon, and demand access to prisoners without interference by the Republican Forces.

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