Seven killed, 44 hurt in Ivory Coast intercommunal violence
Friday May 17 2019
A map showing Ivory Coast and other countries in West Africa. Inter-community violence in Beoumi, a town in central Ivory Coast, has claimed seven lives and left 44 injured, police say.
Inter-community violence in Ivory Coast has claimed seven lives and left 44 injured in recent days, a police source told AFP on Friday.
Fighting erupted between people of the Baoule and Dioula tribes Wednesday at Beoumi, a town in the centre of the country, after an altercation between a taxi driver and a motorbike taxi operator at a taxi rank, said witness Innocent Koffi, a local farmer.
"There were seven deaths and 44 injured," according to the police source.
Local officials declared a 6pm curfew Thursday, and the situation in Beoumi remained tense on Friday, residents told AFP by telephone.
There is long-standing tension between taxi drivers in the region, most of them Dioula from the north, and of motorbike taxis, who are local Baoule.
Inter-community violence is common in the Ivory Coast, a country with several dozen ethnicities among its 25 million inhabitants.