By cbn news
New reports from the Ivory Coast indicate that military forces loyal to President Alassane Ouattara are carrying out reprisal attacks against supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo.
Parishioners are reporting the kidnappings of dozens of young men in San Pedro, a Catholic priest in the cocoa-exporting port city in southwestern Ivory Coast said. The priest asked not to be named, explaining: "We are all in danger."
"Every day the peacekeepers are collecting and burying bodies," he said. "There is lots of dense bush here. Who knows how many bodies there are."
An Associated Press reporter witnessed Ouattara's troops beating a man for not giving them the right answers. The man turned up dead a few minutes later.
Another reporter also saw pro-Ouattara soldiers pull five men from a minibus and drag them into some thick brush at a road block.
A woman at the cathedral who was too scared to give her name said her neighbor, the headmaster of the Catholic primary school, was killed Monday night at his home because he belonged the wrong tribe.
"We have a very toxic and explosive mix here of political, ethnic, religious, and land rivalry," the priest said. "The recent tumultuous events have brought long-simmering conflicts to a head. Who knows where this will end."
No one knows how many people have been killed. A week ago when the United Nations was reporting more than 400 deaths throughout the country, the International Federation of the Red Cross Society said thousands had been killed and wounded.
The U.N. is launching an investigation.
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