Post-election battle lines have yet to fade in western Ivory Coast
"The news is good" is a common greeting in Ivory Coast. But in the west of the country, despite President Alassane Ouattara's appeals for reconciliation, the news could be better. UN agencies and humanitarian organisations still have plenty to do in the region, scarred by massacres and reprisals following the presidential election last November.
In Toulepleu, in the Moyen-Cavally region close to Liberian border, the police chief Karim Abdul Diarra has a lot on his mind. "Two months ago Toulepleu was a ghost town, whereas normally it has a population of 50,000," he explains. For a long time the town served as a base for forces loyal to ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, so everyone fled when the pro-Ouattara forces captured it in early March.
The hospital is a wreck, only a few schools have reopened and most of the population has not returned, but Diarra still believes things are improving. The president's Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI) are restoring law and order, but their presence worries the recently defeated.
"Everyone laughed and wept in turn," says Father Cyprien, the head of the Catholic mission in Duékoué. About 11,000 displaced persons are crammed into three hectares of land. A few weeks ago there were 30,000 people here, but they are beginning to return to their villages. "The biggest challenge is reconciliation," Cyprien explains to the Unicef mission that has arrived to supervise programmes to restore public hygiene, medical care, sanitation and schooling.
It takes several hours for the Unicef vehicles to complete the 90km journey from Danané, cutting through forest. Locals refer to this route as "the axis of death", with a succession of mass killings and burnt-out homes.
The origin of the perpetrators varied with the ebb and flow of the frontline during the conflict. In one place hundreds of villagers were allegedly slaughtered by Liberian mercenaries, in Guérés it was Gbagbo supporters, in Malinkés pro-Ouattara forces and in some cases the FRCI were purportedly to blame.
Most people here are either fishers or farmers. Now their canoes and tools have been wrecked, their crops burned. After several months hiding in the bush, people have returned to find they no longer have a livelihood.
Here, as elsewhere, the rice and maize crops could not be harvested and the threat of famine is looming. According to Diarra, "the international organisations will need to stay here at least another year".
This article originally appeared in Le Monde