In April, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague confirmed that Gbagbo and his former right-hand man Charles Ble Goude were in the clear over the devastating post-electoral violence that rocked the West African nation in 2010-11.

“I am announcing the return of president Laurent Gbagbo on Ivorian soil on June 17,” said Assoa Adou, general secretary of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party Gbagbo founded.

The announcement was made on Gbagbo’s 76th birthday.

More than 3,000 people were killed in months of fighting after the 2010 election when Gbagbo disputed the results of the vote won by current President Alassane Ouattara and refused to stand down.

Gbagbo was eventually forced out of power. He was arrested in April 2011 and was held in northern Ivory Coast before being transferred to the ICC.

He became the first head of state to stand trial at the court, though both he and Ble Goude always insisted they were not guilty of crimes against humanity.

Despite spending years behind bars in the Dutch city, as well as time in Brussels as he awaited the outcome of an appeal against his acquittal in 2019, the deeply divisive ex-president retains strong support at home.

Ouattara has said that his predecessor was welcome to return home and would “enjoy … the advantages and allowances available to former presidents”.

Gbagbo’s supporters have hailed the ICC’s decision to uphold his acquittal along with that of Ble Goude, saying their return would heal the wounds of a conflict that split the country along north-south lines.

Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, is divided between the Muslim-majority north and the Christian-dominated south.

Ouattara is a Muslim northerner while Gbagbo is a Christian from the south.

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The 50-day war, which devastated the coastal enclave and left 2,251 dead on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, and 74 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers, has already been the subject of a five-year preliminary ICC probe and a string of critical reports.

Here is a look at previous reports and probes into the war between the Jewish state and Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza:

ICC preliminary probe

In January 2015, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda launched a preliminary examination into whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant opening war crimes investigations into the conflict. The examination involved both Israeli and Palestinian actions.

That long-running probe looked at the 2014 war and later at violence near the Israel-Gaza border in 2018.

In December 2019, the prosecutor said she wanted to open a full investigation, having been “satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip”, without specifying the perpetrators of the alleged crimes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that position made the Hague-based court, which Israel has refused to sign up to since its creation in 2002, a “political tool” against the Jewish state.

Bensouda said she would first ask the ICC to make a jurisdictional ruling on the matter, due to “unique and highly contested legal and factual issues attaching to this situation”.

On Friday, the ICC ruled it had jurisdiction over the situation in “territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank”.

Netanyahu again slammed the court, calling the ruling “anti-Semitic”, while the Palestinians — who became a state party to the court in 2015 — hailed it as “victory for justice”.

UN reports

On June 23, 2015, a report by a UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict says it received “credible allegations” that both Israeli and Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the war.

The report followed a UN Security Council document published on April 27, 2015, that blamed the Israeli military for seven strikes on UN schools in Gaza that were used as shelters. Forty-four people were killed.

The independent experts who compiled the report also found that UN schools, while vacant at the time, were in three cases used to hide Palestinian weapons. In two of the cases, militants probably fired on Israeli soldiers from the establishments, the report found.

Rights groups

International human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, also accused both sides of war crimes.

In late 2014, London-based Amnesty said it documented eight instances in which Israeli forces attacked homes in Gaza “without warning”, killing at least 104 civilians, and alleged that the destruction of four multi-storey buildings late in the war breached international humanitarian law.

It also said “Palestinian armed groups also committed war crimes” in indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets into Israel, actions which left six civilians dead.

In May 2015, it accused Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, of war crimes against fellow Palestinians to “settle scores” during the war, notably the execution of at least 23 people.

US-based Human Rights Watch said in September 2014 that in three cases it examined, Israel caused “numerous civilian casualties in violation of the laws of war”.

The incidents were the separate shellings of two UN schools in northern Gaza on July 24 and 30, and a guided missile strike on another UN school in the southern city of Rafah on August 3.

The attacks killed a total of 45 people including 17 children, HRW said.

Israeli reports and investigations

Israel in June 2015 defended its conduct in the Gaza war as both “lawful” and “legitimate” in a detailed inter-ministerial report.

The authors acknowledged that “numerous civilians were caught in the hostilities”, but they added Israel “did not intentionally target civilians or civilian objects”.

Israeli military authorities carried out their own investigations into the conduct of their troops during the war and in April 2015 announced three soldiers had been charged with looting.

Source: Channels TV

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According to a statement issued by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Wednesday, during the seven-day mourning period, the party’s flags in its offices will be flown at half-mast in honour of those who lost their lives.

“The PDP urges the people of Plateau State to exercise their rights as global citizens, work with other public-spirited Nigerians and groups and take President Muhammadu Buhari and his government to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague for acting helpless in the face of continuous mass killings in our country,” the statement reads.

The decision is in reaction to the weekend attack by suspected herdsmen on villages in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State in which at least 100 people were killed.

https://iso.keq.mybluehost.me/ibadan-church-stages-protest-against-herdsmens-killings/

Also, in addition to the killings, no fewer than over 50 houses were set ablaze and many who survived the attack fled the communities, leading to humanitarian challenges.

The Plateau State Government, had earlier called on the Federal Government to provide N10 billion for a Victims Support Fund.

The Plateau killings has sparked fresh calls for President Muhammadu Buhari, who lamented that life was being cheapened in the country after the attacks, to take decisive action and halt the bloodshed.

There have also been accusations of bias on the part of the security agencies with a former Minister of Defence, Lieutenant General Theophilus Danjuma accusing the military of bias earlier this year.

The PDP, suggested that such accusations won’t come up of it was in power.

“The PDP firmly holds that the life of every Nigerian is sacred. All Nigerians must be protected whether they are Birom, Basange, Igbira, Tiv, Idoma, Hausa, Igbo, Fulani, Gbagyi, Yoruba or from any other tribe whatsoever.

“The fundamental duty of government all over the world is the protection of lives and Nigerians can no longer continue to fold their hands while compatriots are being daily hacked down by marauders.”

The Federal Government and the Presidency have repeatedly denied allegations of bias against it.

During his condolence visit to Plateau on Tuesday, President Buhari told residents of the state that “there is some injustice” in allegations that he is silent over the killings because he is Fulani.

He assured the people that the necessary steps would be taken to protect them and bring those behind the brutal attacks to justice.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) reacted to the killings on Wednesday morning, demanding the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

“We call on security agencies to spare no efforts in ensuring the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators and in stemming the occurrence of such violence in all parts of the country,” the APC said in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Bolaji Abdullahi.

The party urged religious and community leaders “to demonstrate true leadership even in the face of this terrible challenge by appealing to those affected not to take the laws into their hands and avoid utterances and actions that can provoke reprisal”.

Concerns over reprisals by victims of the attack and the possible breakdown of law and order had led the Plateau State Government to impose a curfew on Barkin Ladi and two neighbouring LGAs – Jos-North and Riyom – on Sunday

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