AP IMPACT: New proof of Ivory Coast vote killings

AB IMPACT

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – The entrance to the morgue is like a mouth through which comes an awful smell. It hits you as far back as the parking lot and makes your eyes water. From a dozen yards away, it's strong enough to make you throw up.

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What lies inside is proof of mass killings in this once-tranquil country of 21 million, where the sitting president is refusing to give way to his successor. Nearly every day since Laurent Gbagbo was declared the loser of the Nov. 28 election, the bodies of people who voted for his opponent have been showing up on the sides of highways.

Their distraught families have gone from police station to police station looking for them, but the bodies are hidden in plain sight in morgues turned into mass graves. Records obtained by The Associated Press from four of the city's nine morgues show that at least 113 bullet-ridden bodies have been brought in since the election. The number is likely much higher because the AP was refused access to the five other morgues, including one where the United Nations believes as many as 80 bodies were taken.

Security Proof

The bodies are being held hostage and not released to families. Morgue workers say government minders are stationed outside to monitor what goes in or out.

Coast Vote Killing

A list of the dead that the AP was allowed to see on the laptop of a company that manages three downtown morgues shows the bodies began arriving Dec. 1, the night the country's electoral commission was due to announce that opposition leader Alassane Ouattara had won. The AP also saw legal documents from authorities instructing funeral homes to pick up bodies found on public roads, and the paperwork handed to families.

Ivory Coast

The names of the dead indicate they are largely Muslim and from the country's north, the demographic that voted in largest numbers for Ouattara, himself a Muslim from the north.

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Families have been allowed inside the morgues only long enough to identify their relatives, if at all. They cannot take their loved ones for burial because the government, still controlled by Gbagbo, has not given the go-ahead for autopsies on bodies with bullet wounds. Funeral home directors say the procedure is normally approved within 48 hours.

New Proof Of Ivory Coast

Diaby Madoussou, 40, has been waiting for two months. She found her husband lying face down on the pavement where he had taken part in a march to support Ouattara, recognized internationally as the winner of the vote. Ouattara now lives in a hotel under 24-hour United Nations protection, its lobby crowded with supporters taking refuge.

Vote Killings

She took off her pagne and used the wraparound skirt to cover him. She waited beside him wearing only her underclothes until the morgue sent a car to pick up the body. They handed her a 'fiche d'entree,' or entry sheet stating that his body would be stored in vault No. 50 in a morgue in the outlying suburb of Anyama.