They were likely killed by forces loyal to the former president.
U.N. investigators have determined that the 68 bodies found in 10 burial mounds, in Abidjan, the West African country’s capital, were probably individuals killed by militias loyal to the deposed President Laurent Gbagbo.
Guillaume Ngefa, the deputy director of the human rights division of the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast, said the deaths may have occurred the day after Gbagbo was arrested, April 12.
The final battles in the civil war to install the nation's democratically elected leader, Alassane Ouattara, took place in April, and the militias were said to have retreated to the soccer fields when Gbagbo was ousted. The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest grower and exporter of cocoa beans.
(Photo: AP Photo/ONUCI, Pelagie Kouame)
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