Highlights

- Prime Minister's office organizes workshop on identification
- Mobile Courts issue 484 substitute birth certificates
- Post Offices reopen in west and north after absence of more than five years

Identification

The Prime Minister's Office today organised a workshop to explain the modus operandi for identification and voter registration to representatives of political parties, religious and traditional leaders, human rights NGOs. The same workshop will be held tomorrow for national and international media the media and civil society organisations. UNOCI's Public Information and Electoral Assistance Divisions attended the workshop as members of the Communication Team for Identification.

Mobile Courts

The new phase of the Mobile Court hearings continued throughout Cote d'Ivoire yesterday with some 484 substitute birth certificate being issued. Meanwhile the strike by courts registrars over the non payment of some allowances during the last phase of the hearings, which ended on 15 May 2008, continued. The renovation of coordination centres continues with 26 sites having been completely rehabilitated while renovation work has reached an advanced stage on 44 other sites.

Security

A meeting on the deteriorating security situation in the Bouna area (north east) was organised by the Prefet yesterday. During the meeting, he told participants, who included representatives from GHANBATT and Licorne, as well as the Forces Nouvelles Deputy Zone Commander, that the present security measures were ineffective in face of increased vandalism and robberies in the area. The Deputy Zone Commander promised to try to find an urgent solution and suggested a meeting with Impartial Forces to discuss the issue.

Redeployment of administration

Post offices have reopened in Man (west) and Odienné (north) after an absence of some five years during the Ivorian crisis. According to the Director of Postal Services, the post offices have started functioning again because civil servants are being redeployed in areas under Forces Nouvelles control.

Arms embargo

Military Observers from Seguéla (centre west) yesterday successfully conducted an arms embargo inspection at the Armed Forces of the Forces Nouvelles (FAFN) Unit in Dianra (centre west).

Human Rights

The Human Rights Regional Office in Daloa is investigating reports that seven demobilized soldiers from the Forces Nouvelles were arrested on 17 August 2008 on the orders of a Captain Diomandé alias Delta, who is reportedly the Director of the Investigation Unit in Bouaké. The ex-combatants were allegedly beaten with the butts of Kalashnikovs rifles and their personal belongings seized. Most of them were bodyguards of the former Zone Commander, Koné Zacharia. Some of them were reportedly released on 18 August 2008.

A villager from Botro, near Bouaké (east), has told the Regional Human Rights Office that he was beaten up and his motorbike confiscated on 25 August 2008 by two members of the FAFN gendarmerie stationed in the village, after he was involved in an accident with a female pedestrian. He said that he was also physically assaulted by the deputy commander of the gendarmerie and lost 50,000 FCFA. The villager claimed that a man who tried to calm down the situation, was stabbed.

On 28 August, three unidentified individuals armed with Kalashnikovs attacked Zohode encampment in Binao village, situated 50 km from Duekoué (west). They raped a woman and physically assaulted her husband before escaping. They also left a message warning villagers not to report the incident to the Mixed Brigade in Bangolo. The woman was treated at the MSF Hospital in Bangolo (west).