Ivory Coast: 19 killed in inter-communal conflict

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast

Nineteen people were killed last week in inter-communal clashes between Fulani herders and a community of farmers in Bouna, northeastern Ivory Coast, officials said late Tuesday.

"Calm has returned, but the death toll is 19, including a gendarme, and 41 injured including two gendarmes," Mariatou Kone, Ivorian minister of social cohesion, told a press conference in Abidjan.

Local sources told Anadolu Agency that on March 23, clashes erupted when ethnic Lobi farmers accused Fulani herders of negligence, saying that flocks had destroyed and ransacked their plantations.

Kone said that the clashes had also caused the displacement of 3,000 people, including 1,000 Burkinabe.

They returned to Burkina Faso when the clashes started, Kone added.

Some 700 soldiers of the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI) and the United Nations Operation in Ivory Coast (UNOCI) have been deployed across Bouna to restore peace and order, an Ivorian security source told Anadolu Agency.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast

Nineteen people were killed last week in inter-communal clashes between Fulani herders and a community of farmers in Bouna, northeastern Ivory Coast, officials said late Tuesday.

"Calm has returned, but the death toll is 19, including a gendarme, and 41 injured including two gendarmes," Mariatou Kone, Ivorian minister of social cohesion, told a press conference in Abidjan.

Local sources told Anadolu Agency that on March 23, clashes erupted when ethnic Lobi farmers accused Fulani herders of negligence, saying that flocks had destroyed and ransacked their plantations.

Kone said that the clashes had also caused the displacement of 3,000 people, including 1,000 Burkinabe.

They returned to Burkina Faso when the clashes started, Kone added.