All events · The Long Emergencies

Côte d'Ivoire's Division and Post-Election Crisis

2002–2011 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Displacement Territory Seized Mass Killing Sexual Violence

Displaced

1 million

The ICC Prosecutor's account of the 2010–11 post-electoral crisis cites approximately one million people displaced, the great majority within Côte d'Ivoire and concentrated in Abidjan and the west. Human Rights Watch recorded nearly 40,000 refugees crossing into Liberia between the second round of the election and 24 February 2011, a figure that rose sharply during the March–April fighting. Several hundred thousand were also displaced during the 2002–03 war and its aftermath. The figures are UN and NGO operational estimates rather than registrations, and the waves overlap.

Share of the population affected

5.7%

of the population of Cote d'Ivoire when the country divided, 2002

Killed

at least 3,000

Documented minimum; the full toll is higher. direct killing

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What happened

A failed coup in September 2002 split Côte d'Ivoire between a rebel-held north and a government-held south, divided by a buffer zone patrolled by French and UN troops, a division that lasted until 2011. Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to concede the November 2010 presidential election to Alassane Ouattara triggered six months of violence. Human Rights Watch documented at least 3,000 civilians killed and more than 150 women raped between November 2010 and May 2011, naming pro-Gbagbo units including the Republican Guard, CECOS and the Young Patriots militia, and pro-Ouattara Republican Forces and Invisible Commandos; the largest single massacre took place at Duékoué in March 2011. The ICC Prosecutor cited widespread and systematic attacks on civilians, roughly one million people displaced, mass graves in Abidjan, and widespread arbitrary arrests, disappearances and rape. Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé were tried at the ICC for crimes against humanity and acquitted in January 2019, an acquittal upheld on appeal in March 2021. No senior pro-Ouattara commander has been convicted for crimes committed by his forces.

Parties

Forces Nouvelles rebels held the north from 2002 while government forces and allied militias held the south; in 2010–11 forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo and to Alassane Ouattara fought for control, with mass killings of civilians on both sides

Disputed

Accountability is strongly disputed: the ICC's only defendants were from the losing side and were acquitted, and Ivorian and international human rights organizations argue that crimes by pro-Ouattara forces, including at Duékoué, have gone unprosecuted.

The denominator

The 1998 census counted 15.4 million and estimates for 2002 give about 17-18 million. Roughly a quarter were immigrants or of recent immigrant descent, mostly from Burkina Faso and Mali - the fact at the centre of the ivoirite dispute over nationality and land that drove the conflict.

The 1 million spans two distinct crises nine years apart - the 2002 partition and the 2010-11 post-election war - and includes both internal displacement and flight into Liberia and Ghana.

Where the baseline comes from

First Ivorian Civil Waropen-edited
Second Ivorian Civil Waropen-edited

On the death toll

Human Rights Watch documented at least 3,000 civilians killed during the six months of the post-electoral crisis, an explicit minimum based on investigated cases rather than an estimate of the total. No comprehensive toll has been produced for the 2010–11 crisis or for the 2002–04 war and the years of division, so the upper bound is not established.

Documented forms of violence

Mass KillingSummary ExecutionSexual ViolenceDestruction of Property

Documented by Human Rights Watch's 2011 investigation and by the ICC Prosecutor's filings in the Côte d'Ivoire situation.

Formal findings

International Criminal Court (2021) — Charged Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé with crimes against humanity (murder, rape, other inhumane acts, attempted murder and persecution) for the 2010–11 post-electoral violence; the Trial Chamber acquitted both on 15 January 2019 and the Appeals Chamber upheld the acquittals on 31 March 2021 — source