COTE D'IVOIRE: Facing major insecurity

On the night of 14 October, armed men attacked a power station in the commercial capital Abidjan. Another gang hit a town in the east of the city where they tried to break into a police and paramilitary forces’ base.

In August, gunmen raided military posts and police stations in separate incidents in Abidjan. On 20 September, three people were killed when armed assailants attacked two police stations and a paramilitary forces’ post in Port-Bouët to the south of Abidjan. Hours later gunmen attacked the Noé border post with Ghana, some 170km east of the city.

The government of President Alassane Ouattara came to power after months of vicious battles between his forces and those loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who was ousted from the presidency after his refusal to accept defeat by Ouattara in the November 2010 elections.

Reforming the army, deeply divided by the conflict, is a key priority for Ouattara’s government, but there has been little progress since he took power in April 2011. The authorities blame exiled Gbagbo loyalists for the spate of attacks, an accusation the supporters of the former president deny, but many Gbagbo sympathizers have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the raids.