Highlights

- Forces Nouvelles appeals to volunteer teachers to end strike
- Reconciliation meeting held in Marahui

Demonstrations

The Forces Nouvelles (FN) yesterday made a televised appeal to striking volunteer teachers who have been preventing the opening of schools in the Korhogo area to end their action and allow the schools to start the new term. He assured the Directorate of Education that it had the full support of the FN to ensure that schools reopen. However this morning Armed Forces of the Forces Nouvelles (FAFN) soldiers were again forced to disperse the volunteer teachers, who are demonstrating in support of their demands to be absorbed into the education system. Meanwhile, civil servants in Boundiali have decided to go on an indefinite strike in protest against the non payment of their redeployment allowances, while those in Ferkéssedougou have said they will be on strike from 23 September 2008 for the same reason.

Demonstrators today blocked various parts of the road between Soubré and Daloa in south-western Côte d'Ivoire, in protest against a hike in public transport fares. UNOCI staff were advised to avoid any movement to the area.

Security

A UNOCI patrol which yesterday went to Marahui village, 75 km from Bondoukou, to provide security following the violent clashes between Lobis and Koulangos on 3 and 5 September 2008, was told that a reconciliation meeting had been held there on 13 September 2008. The meeting, which was organised by an Ivorian human rights NGO, brought together various leaders from the two communities. The two communities agreed to bury their differences, and as a gesture of peace, the Lobis made a symbolic donation of 70,000 FCFA and food items to the Koulangos in Marahui and promised to send more items. The patrol also observed that most of the displaced were returning to the village.

A group of unidentified, masked individuals, armed with AK-47 machine guns and handmade guns, ambushed a public transport vehicle carrying 25 passengers on 15 September 2008, on the Duékoué-Guiglo road, near the village of Bahe, 11 km from Duékoué (west). They beat up the driver and took large sums of money and food from the passengers.

Arms embargo

UNOCI peacekeepers carried out arms embargo inspections at Armed Forces of the Forces Nouvelles' (FAFN) Units in Koro, near Odienné, (north-west), Bouandougo, near Séguéla, (centre-west) and Bouna (east) as well as at the National Armed Forces of Côte d'Ivoire (FANCI) gendarmerie brigades in Gagnoa (south-west) and Bocanda (Daoukro east).

Human Rights

On 15 September, four members of the Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte d'Ivoire (FESCI), reported to the Regional Human Rights Office in Abidjan that they were being threatened by a group of former members of the student's union. They said that 48 FESCI members had banned from attending classes and thrown out of their campus accommodation by the group. They said that they were afraid to complain to relevant authorities due to the ongoing threats. The Office facilitated contact between the four and the President of the National Commission of Human Rights.

The Regional Human Rights Office in Duekoué (west) in collaboration with the Child Protection Section, organized a workshop on 16 September 2008 for members of a local NGO called Coopérative agricole Espoir de Duékoué (CPGED) and a group of women in Glaou village, 14 km from Duékoué. More than 40 women from the Burkinabé, Malian, Yacouba, Baoulé and Guéré communities participated in the session that focused on the right to education for young girls and the adverse consequences of female genital mutilation.