Ivorian abuse 'rife', says report

Children have been raped and murdered in Ivory Coast's conflict

United Nations report has found proof of torture, mass executions and rape over the past two years in Ivory Coast, according to a French newspaper.

Liberation says the unpublished report accuses both sides in the Ivorian civil war of violations of human rights.

Rebels fighting President Laurent Gbagbo currently control the northern half of Ivory Coast.

The report includes a secret list of 200 people who could face prosecution or UN sanctions, Liberation says.

The newspaper said the 100-page report lays out "the nightmare of Ivory Coast in all its horror".

Since a failed a coup against President Gbagbo in 2002, the west African country has been wracked by civil conflict and has been left in a state of division.

French UN peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone between rebel forces in the north and government-held areas in the south.

The international forces are criticised for failing to act to prevent killings in the country, despite having a mandate to do so.

'Cold execution'

Liberation says the UN report documents a catalogue of human rights abuses and violence over more than two years of civil war.

The newspaper says that French and UN peacekeepers filmed many of the abuses, and evidence could later be used in war crimes prosecutions.

Neighbouring states, including Mali and Burkina Faso, are also implicated in the violence, accused of offering training bases and equipment to the rebels.

Other near neighbours Guinea and Angola are listed as offering support to government forces, Liberation says.

The report lists a catalogue of killings and abuses, including:

• The "cold execution" by rebels of 131 civilians in September 2002 after government forces failed to retake the central Ivorian town of Bouake

• One hundred and twenty immigrant workers killed at cocoa and coffee plantations in December 2002 by government troops

• Torture including a woman forced to drink blood and urine and a man forced to have sex with his mother

• Women of all ages were raped, as were children, the report asserts.

President Gbagbo's troops have also been blamed for atrocities

"On both sides of the conflict women were used to assuage the bestial appetites of the combatants, some of whom were under the influence of drugs," Liberation quoted the UN report as saying.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says the report offers an unsparing and unsettling view of the conflict in Ivory Coast.

Torture is rampant and the detail in the report obscene, he adds.

In their conclusion, the report's five authors said they hoped they could help "progressively to end the impunity and generalised irresponsibility that characterise Ivory Coast".