A group of Dozo, or traditional hunters, pose for a photograph at their encampment in Duekoué on March 12, 2012. The role of the Dozo in last year's post-election violence is unclear; while many maintain that they are the protectors of the region, Gbagbo supporters insist that the Dozo joined with the advancing opposition army and participated in heavy fighting and even massacres.
Refugees who had been living in Liberia are returned home to their villages in a large U.N. refugee repatriation to the western region of the Ivory Coast on March 11, 2012. Having fled last year, this is the first time in over a year that they were able to return home.
More than 150,000 people fled their homes and ended up in Liberian refugee camps, or moved in with acquiantances made during the Liberian civil war. Above, refugees who had been living in Liberia return to their village and reunite with family members for the first time in Bledi Dieya on March 11, 2012.
A woman begins rebuilding her destroyed house in Bledi Dieya on the first day she returned home after a year living as a refugee in Liberia, March 11, 2012.
Community leaders speak at a reconciliation ceremony in the Carrefour neighborhood of Duekoué on March 9, 2012. Duekoué was the site of heavy fighting and a massacre that killed hundreds, yet the reconciliation event was attended predominantly by community leaders and U.N. and foreign aid workers, with little participation from local people.
Jean Luc Gnompoa and Olivier Tehe, local villagers, in Duekoue on March 9, 2012. The two were split up during an attack on their village. Jean Luc escaped, while Olivier ran straight into a massacre. He survived by running into a crowd of women and pretending to be one of them so that soldiers overlooked him. The two are currently living in a refugee camp.
The rubble of former homes in Niambli, Ivory Coast on March 13, 2012. Niambli, a village divided between local and foreign ethnic groups, was the site of heavy fighting between Gbagbo and Ouattara supporters.
While people struggle to return home and to their normal lives, cocoa production proceeds apace. Above, a mural on the wall at Choco Ivoire, an Ivorian company that processes cocoa butter, in San Pedro on March 5, 2012.
The country's inequality of wealth, which prompted much of the resentment against foreigners, remains stark. Above, the home of a cocoa exporter in San Pedro, Ivory Coast on March 6, 2012.
Four local men stand amidst the recent ruins of Zibablu Yeblu, Ivory Coast on March 8, 2012. While large-scale fighting has ceased in the country, small attacks are still carried out, a sign of continued ethnic strife. Zibablu Yeblu was attacked as recently as Feb. 9, 2012. Whether, and when, the violence will end and true reconciliation will begin remains an open question.
