Video shows women gunned down in Ivory Coast

[cigsandcoffee]

Source: AP

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- A video obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows how women were gunned down by soldiers backing Ivory Coast's strongman in an incident that has exposed the extent of army abuse and prompted a shockwave of criticism.

The grainy footage was shot by a cameraman working for an opposition television station whose producer gave the AP permission to disseminate the footage. It captures the minutes before the attack Thursday in the troubled Abobo neighborhood where thousands of women took part in an all-women march demanding the departure of Laurent Gbagbo. At least six women were killed.

In the video, which was also posted on YouTube, a set of successive booms is heard as women wave branches in the air in protest. The crowd of hundreds scatters as screaming is heard. Then the cameraman pans over the collapsed bodies of at least four women. The head of one of them has been torn off and people rush to cover it was a piece of cloth. Another who is still alive tries to lift herself up and collapses in her own blood.

It was not immediately possible to show the video to witnesses to check its authenticity, but the images match the accounts of multiple people who were present during the incident.



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_IVORY_COAST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-04-19-25-19

[cigsandcoffee]

1. Is this not fucking awful?

If such an event occured in any Western country, it would cause absolute havoc in the press and culture. But Africa? Well, then lets just keep our heads down and move on, I guess. That's just the way it is there.

[joshcryer]

3. This sort of thing happens all the time, the media is only now taking it upon itself to care.

Fortunately social media is making better progress getting information out than the mass media itself.

[joshcryer]

2. Video link: WARNING GRAPHIC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CCTDiuq7AM

WHEN WILL THE MURDERERS LEARN THAT STATES FIRING ON THEIR OWN PEOPLE FOMENTS REVOLUTION?

[UpInArms]

4. omg - our world is so riddled with horror and terrorists - those with the tanks

and the bullets - those who destroy all chance for peace

it makes me wish i believed in justice

[Zax2me]

5. WTF...

Just awful...

[Zax2me]

6. Just watched the video

Wish I had not.
So tragic and heart breaking.

[Turborama]

7. CNN showed a clip of it along with a clip of the murder of Neda in Iran

at the beginning of this debate.

CNN's Nima Elbagir and Zainab Salbi of Women for Women International discuss women in the Mideast democracy movement.
(warning, graphic video): http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/03/07/nr.women.mideast.democracy.cnn

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Four more killed taking part in new demonstration

Four people have been shot dead in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, after a march to protest about the killing of seven female demonstrators last week.

Journalists have seen the bodies of three men and a woman in clinic.

The shooting has been blamed on rogue army officers supporting disputed President Laurent Gbagbo.
...
News of the latest trouble came as the US said Mr Gbagbo's order for the government to take control of all cocoa purchases and exports "amounts to theft".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12682492

[marasinghe]

9. standard operating procedure for the fucking human animal.

and these hell-spawned scum sponsored & financed & armed by rich assholes lolling in mansions, in their happy places.

the question, as always, is - how long are we, ordinary folk around the planet, gonna sit back in fear, ignorance & the delusion that it would never happen to us, & continue to avert our eyes from our neighbors misery & continue to take it up the ass, ourselves? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya & other mid-east countries, and the Unions in Wisconsin, Ohio & Michigan, have just sounded the latest alarm bells. who knows if we'll wake up, or turn round & go back to sleep.

[RedCloud]

10. I cannot watch this atrocity unfolding. Seems like pre-Castro Cuba violence on women.

[Blue_Tires]

11. kick...

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Gbagbo vows to block UN flights in Ivory Coast - including the man who won the election

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast—Ivory Coast's entrenched incumbent president imposed a no-fly order on U.N. aircraft, possibly complicating the return of the internationally recognized election winner who was attending an African Union summit Thursday in Ethiopia.

Alassane Ouattara departed the commercial capital of Abidjan on a U.N. helicopter Tuesday. He then traveled to the city of Bouake, from which he took a private jet to the meeting aimed at ending the three-month political crisis.
...
U.N. peacekeepers have come under attack in the country, and U.N. officials say they have been blocked from investigating allegations of human rights abuses. More than 400 people are believed to have been killed by forces loyal to Gbagbo, including at least seven unarmed women gunned down at a demonstration last week.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the latest violence, saying he is "particularly appalled by the indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians during peaceful rallies."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/03/10/gbagbo_vows_to_block_un_flights_in_ivory_coast/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+Boston+Globe+--+World+News