This picture taken in Beoumi on May 15, 2019 shows damages after violence erupt earlier between members of the Baoule local community and northern ethnic group Dioula people. - The clashes caused dozens of injured people including six gendarmes and several houses and vehiculs were set ablaze. Gendarmes used tear gas to stop the fights which started between Dioula taxi-brousse and Beoumi moto-taxis. (Photo by - / AFP)
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 6.00 pm 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.
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