The President of Ivory Coast has pardoned 800 people, many of whom were accused of fomenting violence during post-election violence in 2010-2011. Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady who is accused of organizing street fighters when her husband, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to accept his electoral defeat in 2010, was among those granted amnesty.

Read More

One-time warlord and former Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba has returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the first time in the 11 years to submit his candidacy for the president. He spent the last decade in The Hague where he was on trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes that his militia committed in the Central African Republic. He was initially found guilty on both counts, but upon appeal the court ruled he was not criminally liable for crimes committed by his troops.

Ivory Coast’s Supreme Court has overturned an acquittal ruling for former first lady, Simone Gbagbo. Simone, the wife of former president Laurent Gbagbo, was acquitted last year after being accused of involvement in the shelling of a market district of Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital Abidjan, during the 2011 civil conflict that followed her husband’s refusal to acknowledge his electoral defeat. Laurent is currently in detention at the International Criminal Court and is being tried for alleged crimes against humanity during the post-election unrest.

Unrest in Cameroon’s southwest region has claimed the lives of 120 security personnel and at least 220 civilians, and has displaced nearly 100,000 people. The conflict between Anglophone separatists and the government started in 2016 and has escalated in the last few months. A video circulated on social media showed two armed men, alleged to be government soldiers, executing two women and two children on the side of the road. The separatists have also been accused of targeting civilians, particularly collaborators of the Paul Biya regime.