Return of former president is seen as a test for the country and a population that still has the 2011 bloody conflict fresh in memory.
Ivory Coast’s former President Laurent Gbagbo returns home to help “reconcile” a country that he left in turmoil almost 10 years ago.
The opposition leader is due to return after judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague earlier this year confirmed his acquittal, as well as that of his youth minister Charles Ble Goudé, of crimes against humanity. The two had been accused of instigating the post-election violence that engulfed Ivory Coast in 2011.
The return is seen as a test for the country and a population that still has the bloody conflict fresh in memory, with some analysts saying there are concerns that it could again destabilise the West African country.
But Gbagbo’s supporters and members of his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party hope that the 76-year-old’s return, after spending most of the past 10 years in ICC custody, will ease lingering tensions.
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