Côte d’Ivoire: UN hands out work kits, cash for demobbed rebels

The United Nations Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) has handed so-called reinsertion kits to some 400 newly demobilized former rebels as part of the effort to resolve a crisis that first divided the West African country into a rebel-held north and Government-controlled south in 2002.

The kits, packages of work tools and some cash that UNOCI hopes will ease the return of the former combatants to regular civilian life, were handed over at a ceremony in Bouaké, the former rebel stronghold.

This is the second group of former rebels to complete the UN-backed disarmament, demobilization and reinsertion programme. Earlier this month, some 200 former fighters completed the programme in Seguela, a town near the Ivorian border with Mali.

Elections, which have recently been postponed for a third time since the signing of the north-south peace pact, are now scheduled for next year.