Josette* remembers the "black day" on 19 September 2002, when the New Forces rebels, based in Bouake, Cote D'Ivoire, launched an insurrection against President Laurent Gbagbo's government, forcing thousands of people to flee the city.
The people of Bouake are still suffering the consequences of the political crisis that split the country in two in 2002, but the promise that the political situation would stabilise after the main protagonists signed an agreement in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in March 2007, has not put an end to sexual violence.
Josette was locked in the house with her husband and many of her nine children. Terrified by the fighting going on around her, she decided it was time to leave. "Things weren't going well at the house, we didn't have anything to eat," she told IRIN/PlusNews.
A friend lent Josette some money and she travelled to join her brother, about 300km south in Abidjan, the economic hub of Cote d'Ivoire, where she stayed until her brother died in 2006. When she returned to Bouake, she went for an HI virus test and was immediately put on antiretroviral (ARV) medication.
The political crisis had bankrupted her and she had only child support to rely on, but her children rejected her when they realised she was infected. Rather than ending up on the street, Josette made a painful decision: "I told them it wasn't true, that I wasn't infected and I took my medication in private."
Victims of sexual violence
Many people in Cote d'Ivoire suffered sexual or physical violence and looting at the height of the fighting, with an upsurge in cases of collective rape committed by servicemen.
A 2006 survey carried out by Médecins sans Frontières, a medical charity, which ran a unit at the University Hospital Centre (CHU) in Bouake during the crisis, counted 146 cases of sexual violence. In reality these numbers are much higher because many victims do not know who to tell, or are too scared or too ashamed to come forward.
"It takes a long time to get information on rape cases," said Constant N'Da, an assistant at the support and social reinsertion project for displaced and returned women and girls run by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Bouake.
UNFPA and OIS Afrique, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working for rights and solidarity in Africa, work together in supporting victims of the war, particularly those who have been displaced or are traumatised.
"There isn't a day that goes by when we don't see another victim come in," said Jean-Jacques Aka, Executive Director of OIS Afrique. "They are directed here by the medical structures and neighbourhood or village committees we have done awareness work with [on sexual violence]."
Although the area has officially been reunited with the rest of the country, it is largely under ex-rebel control and there has been no real return to the rule of law. According to many humanitarian workers in Bouake, the perpetrators of sexual violence still feel they can get away with it.
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"Cases of violence are not dealt with by the courts or the police, they are resolved informally and families accept it, often through fear of reprisals, particularly when the perpetrators are men in uniform. [The New Forces] are not organised at legal level; we really need a return to State authority."
Officially, the redeployment of civil servants, many of whom took refuge in the government zone in the south of the country during the crisis, is underway, but the situation is far from normal. Many public buildings, symbols of the state's authority, were destroyed and looted during the war and are unusable.
In an attempt to return to normality, humanitarian workers are trying to help people displaced by the war to return home. Aka said they would have to resolve the issue of reintegration, but economic reconstruction was a priority.
"Some displaced persons were working for companies where business is now very slow. Shops and industries have reduced their activity and there is no longer any work," he said.
"Another issue is that their homes and belongings have been looted, and some people no longer have the means to send their children to school. They arrive and have to start a new life, but for that you need a certain amount of money. Displaced persons have come back and then left again for this reason," he pointed out.
"Some displaced persons receive help from organisations, and they would like to move away from this dependency, but you need some money to get started."
This is also true of Josette. None of her children has found a job, and she also dreams of working again. "I want to do something with hands, I want to work but I have to get everything given to me," she said sadly. "The only thing that works here is credit."
*Not her real name
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
