GUIGLO (Ivory Coast): “They speak English and they kill,” said Madeleine Ga Ahou, one of several thousand people displaced after attacks by presumed Liberian fighters in the west of war- torn Ivory Coast.

“Some were in uniform, the others in civvies. We don’t know if they were rebels or others,” she said in the town of Guiglo, about 120 kilometres east of Toulepleu, the scene of bitter fighting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Ga Ahou arrived in Guiglo on Friday with her two children and was lodged at a camp run by the Red Cross.

She cannot say with certitude, like the Ivorian military, that the attackers were regular soldiers from neighbouring Liberia who went on the rampage alongside two rebel movements based in western Ivory Coast.

“All that we saw is that they had guns and they kill people,” she said simply.

The Ivorian military has accused soldiers from the Liberian army of fighting alongside Ivorian rebel groups and of involvement in a deadly raid on Wednesday in the town of Toulepleu which it claims killed at least 29 people.

Ivorian Defence Minister Kadet Bertin said on Thursday that Abidjan had officially asked former colonial ruler France to activate a bilateral defence pact following the alleged raids by Liberian soldiers.

Bertin said he had proof “that it is regular Liberian forces who are attacking us,” adding that the attacks may not have been ordered by Liberian President Charles Taylor but “those in higher echelons of power with bad intentions.”

Taylor on Friday denied the allegation but stressed that Liberian mercenaries were fighting both for the rebels and the Ivorian troops, albeit without Monrovia’s blessings or knowledge.

However, several witnesses have reported the presence of Liberian fighters in Ivory Coast since the end of November.

The people of Guiglo are convinced that Liberians were involved in the attacks in the west, near the prized cocoa belt of Ivory Coast, the world’s top producer of the bean.

Ga Ahou said she saw the “Liberians,” mostly young men in their twenties, for the first time at the start of December in her campment of Iffa, in the heart of cocoa country near the town of Blolekin.

She said they looted and exorted locals but did not kill them.

But on “Tuesday, they returned and started shooting, started demanding money and killing people who did not give them cash.”

“They looted, they took food. we didn’t understand what they were saying. They took my cycle and my little brother,” said Joachim Koffi Kouame.

Kouame, a cocoa planter from central Ivory Coast, came to the region in 1986. But now he is returning to his native region.

Nearly 2,500 people from the Baoule ethnic group, natives of central Ivory Coast like Kouame, have fled during the last 15 days to the relative safety of Guiglo, said Koffi Tanoh, an official looking after the displaced.

Clement Gnan, who is among those who escaped, said “Many fled on foot through thick forests and the journey took several days.”

However, most do not have severe wounds and generally suffer from fatigue or have grazes. But they have deep psychological scars.

“They spoilt everything. I’ve lost 10 years of my life, 10 years of my work,” a fiftyish-year-old man said his eyes brimming with tears.—AFP