Casualties Overview

In 2016, nine ERW casualties were reported in the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. A young boy was injured when the grenade he had picked up on his way to school exploded in his hand.[1] Seven workers were also injured in another incident when a grenade, which one of them had found behind a trash dump, exploded in his hands.[2] Media reports also indicated that in 2016 there were several casualties due to hand grenades being thrown, but it was not always reported if those grenades were used as attacks or found as ERW.

The casualty total for 2016 marked a significant increase in the number of ERW casualties reported in Côte d’Ivoire compared to previous years. No new casualties were reported in Côte d’Ivoire in 2015. In 2014, the Monitor identified one ERW casualty in Côte d’Ivoire; while farming, a man struck a grenade believed to have been left-over from a conflict in 2011.[3]

The Monitor identified a total of 42 ERW casualties in Côte d’Ivoire from 1999 to 2016 (nine people were killed and another 33 injured). The vast majority of casualties, 25, were children, another 12 casualties were adults and for five casualties the age was not recorded.[4]