International legal context

Adherence to all treaties

Disarmament Treaties

Instrument	Status	Comment
1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)	State Party
1980 CCW Protocol I (Non-Detectable Fragments)	Not Party
1996 CCW Amended Protocol II on mines	State Party
1980 CCW Protocol III on incendiary weapons	Not Party
1995 CCW Protocol IV on blinding laser weapons	Not Party
2003 CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war	State Party
2001 Firearms Protocol	State Party
Optional Protocol to the CAT	State Party

International Humanitarian Law Treaties

Instrument	Status	Comment
1949 Geneva Conventions	State Party
Additional Protocol I of 1977	State Party
Additional Protocol II of 1977	State Party

International Criminal Law Treaties

Instrument	Status	Comment
1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court	State Party	Ratified 15 February 2013. Côte d’Ivoire had already accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC on 18 April 2003; and on both 14 December 2010 and 3 May 2011, the Côte d’Ivoire Presidency reconfirmed its acceptance of this jurisdiction.
Amendments to the Statute on the crime of aggression	Not Party
Amendment to the Statute on blinding laser weapons	Not Party
Amendment to the Statute on the intentional starvation of civilians in NIAC	Not Party

International Human Rights Treaties

Instrument	Status	Comment
1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights	State Party
Optional Protocol to the ICCPR	State Party
1966 Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights	State Party
1948 Genocide Convention	State Party
1984 Convention against Torture	State Party
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)	State Party
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict	State Party

Membership to International Organisations

Organisation	Status	Comment
United Nations	Member State
International Court of Justice	Accepted compulsory jurisdiction
African Union	Member State
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)	Member State	Safeguards agreement in place
ECOWAS	Member State

Domestic Legal Context

Imports, exports, and supplier base

Côte d’Ivoire is overwhelmingly an arms importer. According to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, Côte d’Ivoire’s only arms export on record is a single second-hand C-47 transport aircraft supplied to Benin in 1971.

From independence through the 1980s, the Ivorian armed forces were built almost entirely on French equipment: 5 AMX-13-75 light tanks (1966), 20 AML armoured reconnaissance vehicles (1968), 11 VAB armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and 2 VAB infantry fighting vehicles (1980), 7 ERC-90 fire-support vehicles and 4 M-3 VDA self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (1980), and 25 SS-12M anti-ship missiles (1978). A modest diversification began from the late 1980s: 10 ACMAT APCs from France (1989), 10 South African Mamba AV armoured vehicles (1995), and 10 Strela-2 MANPAD missiles from Bulgaria (2000).

After Côte d’Ivoire split in two following the September 2002 rebellion, it turned to Eastern European and post-Soviet suppliers, ordering 2 T-55 tanks (Angola) and 16 BMP-1/BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles (2 Angola, 13 Belarus, 1 Ukraine), 6 BTR-80 and 13 BRDM-2 armoured vehicles (Belarus), 6 BM-21 Grad 122mm multiple rocket launchers (Belarus), 2 MiG-23ML fighters (Bulgaria), and 4 Su-25 ground-attack aircraft (Belarus), alongside 4 Mi-24V combat helicopters (2 Belarus, 2 Bulgaria), 3 Mi-8T transport helicopters (Belarus, Bulgaria), 4 SA-330 Puma helicopters (Romania), 2 Strikemaster trainer/combat jets (United Kingdom), and 2 Aerostar reconnaissance drones (Israel).

That rearmament ended abruptly: on 6 November 2004, two of the newly acquired Su-25s, flown by Belarusian mercenary and Ivorian crews, bombed a French peacekeeping position at Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers and one American aid worker. Within hours, France’s Force Licorne destroyed essentially the entire Ivorian Air Force combat fleet on the ground at Abidjan and Yamoussoukro. The UN Security Council imposed its mandatory arms embargo (UN Security Council Resolution 1572) nine days later, on 15 November 2004, closing off the channels the 2002–04 rearmament had opened and leaving the Air Force without a meaningful combat capability for more than a decade.

The embargo was progressively eased – non-lethal law-enforcement equipment from 2010, civilian vehicles and training without restriction from 2012, non-lethal equipment without prior notification from 2014 – before being lifted in full by UN Security Council Resolution 2283 of 28 April 2016.

Deliveries resumed only gradually thereafter, still substantially through France and other Western-aligned suppliers: 3 RPB-33 patrol boats (France, delivered from 2016), 9 Bastion APCs (France, 2017–18), 4 Saxon APCs (United Kingdom, 2016), 3 Mi-24D combat helicopters (Bulgaria, ordered 2016), 8 Kaiman and 4 BTR-70 armoured vehicles (Belarus, 2017–18), 2 An-26 transport aircraft (Bulgaria, 2017–18), a C-295 transport aircraft (Spain/Airbus, 2018–19), and China’s first Predator-class patrol boat (delivered 2017).

An inflection point came in 2020–21, coinciding with the Kafolo attack and the resulting build-up of Côte d’Ivoire’s northern security forces. China supplied 79 Springbuck SD light armoured vehicles (via South Africa, delivered in 2023), 16 WZ-551 APCs (2021–22), and 9 VN-22B 105mm fire-support vehicles (delivered in 2023. Türkiye delivered at least 70 Otokar Cobra II APCs (delivered in 2024), the United Arab Emirates supplied 5 Jaws APCs (2021–22), and the United States supplied 2 Terrier LT-79 and 9 BATT armoured vehicles (2021–22). Unidentified suppliers have since 2023 delivered 5 armed AS-350/H-125 light helicopters (2024) and 3 further Mi-24Vs (2025), with a 2023 order of 20 Mi-17 transport helicopters still pending delivery.

Most recently, in August 2026, Côte d’Ivoire publicly unveiled two Chinese Wing Loong II armed-capable surveillance drones ordered in 2024, and China delivered two further Predator-class patrol vessels, commissioned 2 July 2026, for Gulf of Guinea security. France still remains Côte d’Ivoire’s main training and capacity-building partner, continuing limited equipment transfers, joint exercises, and cooperation under the 2013 Yaoundé Architecture regional maritime-security framework.

Domestic legislation relevant to the Arms Trade Treaty

National framework

Côte d’Ivoire’s core civilian arms-control framework dates from the immediate post-civil-war period and comprises two principal instruments. Law No. 98-749 of 23 December 1998, on the repression of infractions against the regulation of arms, ammunition and explosive substances, sets criminal penalties graduated by weapons category – from 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment and fines of 5–10 million CFA francs for unauthorized manufacture, import, or storage of Category 1–3 (war matériel), down to shorter terms for lower categories – and provides for mandatory confiscation and destruction of seized weapons.

Decree No. 99-183 of 24 February 1999, as amended by Decree No. 2012-609 of 4 July 2012, is the operative regulatory instrument: it divides weapons into eight categories (from prohibited war matériel through defence, hunting, bladed, fairground, and collectors’ arms), requires ministerial authorization – valid up to five years and renewable – for manufacture, import, and sale, and requires individual permit applicants to provide identity documents, medical clearance, a demonstrated need, a clean criminal record, and (since the 2012 amendment) a training certificate; permit holders may hold no more than three permits and may not carry weapons in public.

This framework significantly predates, and has not been comprehensively updated to reflect, Côte d’Ivoire’s subsequent international commitments: the 2006 ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, the ATT (ratified in 2015), and the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA). Ivorian officials and international assessors have repeatedly identified the resulting gaps. At a September 2009 parliamentary workshop on aligning Ivorian law with the ECOWAS Convention, a Ministry of Justice official identified specific absences in the domestic framework – marking, tracing, brokering, stockpile management, visitors’ certificates or temporary import certificates, and corruption – that the 1998–99 texts do not address.

UNIDIR’s 2016 baseline Weapons and Ammunition Management (WAM) assessment similarly found that Law 98-749 and Decree 99-183 ‘did not adequately address current challenges’ in the Ivorian security context; other decrees supplement the framework on specific points, including the regulation of private security companies and explosive substances.

A draft law establishing a general regime for arms, their parts, components, ammunition and related materials has been under preparation for several years, with the process involving the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons (ComNat-ALPC). The reform is intended to modernize and harmonize Côte d’Ivoire’s fragmented arms-control framework with its international and regional commitments, including the ATT and the ECOWAS Convention. Recent sources indicate that the reform remained pending: a 2026 assessment reported that it had not resulted in legislation and had been omitted from government programming for 2024–26.

UNIDIR’s March 2023 assessment itemizes specific coverage gaps in the current legal framework, distinct from the institutional and technical gaps described elsewhere in this section: several elements of transfer control – export, transit, transhipment, and brokering – are not yet addressed by any Ivorian law or regulation; stockpile management of weapons and ammunition is not explicitly regulated; and the framework does not adequately address the processing of weapons and ammunition recovered by the State through seizure, collection, or judicial destruction. More broadly, UNIDIR finds that Côte d’Ivoire lacks a comprehensive national strategy for the management of conventional arms, including small arms and light weapons, and conventional ammunition.

Beyond the ECOWAS Convention, the ATT, and the UN Programme of Action, the 2000 Bamako Declaration on an African Common Position on the Illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons is a further regional instrument against which the domestic framework has not been comprehensively aligned. Among UNIDIR’s specific recommendations for the pending general arms-regime law are: creation of a national control list of strategic and sensitive goods; full implementation of ATT transfer-control obligations, including end-user certification; updated regulation of civilian-held weapons, including hunting and craft-made (‘artisanal’) firearms; revised rules governing private security companies’ use of weapons; and dedicated regulation of national stockpiles of conventional arms, ammunition, and explosives held for civilian use.

Licensing and control functions are divided among several institutions, coordinated at the strategic level by the National Security Council (Conseil National de Sécurité, CNS) and, specifically for small arms and light weapons, by the Commission Nationale de Lutte contre la Prolifération et la Circulation Illicite des Armes Légères et de Petit Calibre (ComNat-ALPC), established in 2009 under the Ministry of the Interior and Security. Although ECOWAS has recommended that national commissions’ mandates be broadened to cover all conventional arms across their full life cycle, ComNat-ALPC’s mandate remains limited to small arms and light weapons.

For weapons procurement, the security forces (army, gendarmerie, police, customs, water, and forestry) submit centralized requirements through the Armed Forces (Forces Armées de Côte d’Ivoire – FACI) to the Ministry of Defence, which forwards an exemption request to ECOWAS via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; once granted, the CNS proceeds with acquisition under the military and internal security programming laws, with funds released by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development. Civilian and private-company import applications follow a parallel process, also routed through the Ministry of Defence and the CNS, with private companies applying for an import licence from the Ministry of the Interior and Security.

Weapons management and registration functions are shared among the National Gendarmerie, National Police, Customs, and the Water and Forests authority, nominally integrated through SIGAM, an electronic arms- and ammunition-management system being rolled out at the CNS and, as of March 2023, still being piloted by the police alone, with wider Forces de Défense et de Sécurité (FDS) coverage and a linked national platform still pending; territorial coverage is constrained because most storage sites lack a connection to wired communication networks. Côte d’Ivoire is separately considering adoption of ‘Arms Tracker’ (CAVR) software to strengthen weapons identification alongside SIGAM. A weapons-marking programme launched in late 2011 and using laser micro-percussion has been cited by UNIDIR as a ‘regional example of good practice’. Between 2016 and early 2023 approximately 9,806 weapons were marked to ECOWAS and international standards, though older State-owned stocks and new supplies still require marking, and of the 11 marking machines Côte d’Ivoire had acquired, four were no longer operational by March 2023 for lack of maintenance.

Article 10 of the 2006 ECOWAS Convention requires States Parties to maintain a centralized electronic weapons database; as of the March 2023 assessment this had not yet been implemented in Côte d’Ivoire. A related gap concerns civilian-held weapons specifically: because the issuance of new civilian firearms permits has been suspended since the 2010–11 crisis, the national register of civilian-held weapons has itself been destroyed and, per UNIDIR, cannot be reconstituted – leaving Côte d’Ivoire without any current record of who legally holds firearms among its civilian population.

Transparency and reporting

Côte d’Ivoire has filed a confidential ATT Annual Report every year from 2016 to 2023, the most recent year captured in the ATT Monitor’s public country-profile database; none of the substantive content of these reports is publicly available, precluding independent assessment of Côte d’Ivoire’s actual transfer activity through this channel. By contrast, its reporting to the PoA is public and consistent – a national report has been filed in every biennial cycle since 2005 – and provides the most reliable weapons destruction and collection figures available: 2,035 weapons destroyed in 2024, and 1,441 in 2025, for example, alongside 1,426 collected in 2025. The UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and The HALO Trust have separately assisted with ammunition disposal (over 150 tonnes destroyed between 2011 and 2015).

Côte d’Ivoire’s reporting to the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA), is limited to two ‘Nil’ returns, filed in 1993 and 2002, with no submissions since.

Key Weaponry in the Armed Forces

Strategic position and defence posture

Côte d’Ivoire’s defence posture is predominantly defensive and counter-terrorism-oriented, with modernization since 2020 concentrated on counter-insurgency, border security, and maritime patrol capability rather than symmetric warfighting. Unlike Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, it has so far avoided serious, sustained jihadist violence on its own territory. The March 2016 attack on the beach resort of Grand-Bassam, which killed at least 19 people, was, per UNIDIR, the event that first ‘prompted significant efforts by the Ivorian government to counter the threats posed by the acquisition and use of weapons… by terrorist groups’.

The larger build-up began with the June 2020 Kafolo raid by Katiba Macina fighters that killed 14 Ivorian soldiers – a constituent group of the al-Qaeda-aligned group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) – the first cross-border attack of its kind, followed by further attacks through 2022. In response, Abidjan deployed roughly 1,500 additional soldiers to the north, nearly doubled regional police numbers to around 4,000, roughly tripled gendarme numbers to around 10,000, and established a dedicated ‘Operational Zone North’ and a centralized Centre de renseignement opérationnel antiterroriste (CROAT), paired with an estimated €49 million (2022–2025) in complementary development spending on infrastructure, youth employment, and vocational training.

No attack attributable to jihadist groups has been recorded on Ivorian soil since mid-2022, though officials have cautioned this may reflect a temporary lull rather than durable success, given continuing jihadist presence in cross-border trafficking economies, deteriorating security cooperation with the Malian and Burkinabè militaries, and allegations of discriminatory treatment of Peul communities by security forces (see ‘Northern border operations’ below). That trafficking economy is documented: GI-TOC recorded 25 cattle-rustling incidents and roughly 640 head of cattle stolen in Côte d’Ivoire’s northern Bounkani region in 2024 alone, a trade JNIM has used to help finance its operations, with sustained Ivorian military pressure since 2022 pushing some activity into neighbouring Ghana, where enforcement is weaker. Per ACLED, this local trafficking sits within an extended JNIM logistics network stretching across the central Sahel into the West African littoral states, including Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo. A parallel, directly arms-relevant finding comes from the Global Organized Crime Index, which identifies Ouangolodougou, in the northern Tchologo region, as a major transit point for weapons entering Côte d’Ivoire from as far afield as Guinea and Liberia (see ‘Risk of Diversion’ below).

Since 2025–26, Côte d’Ivoire’s relations with the military juntas ruling Burkina Faso and Mali have deteriorated into open hostility, distinct from and compounding the jihadist threat. An earlier episode played out with Mali in 2022: 49 Ivorian soldiers deployed under a bilateral logistics-support arrangement for MINUSMA were detained by Malian authorities on arrival in Bamako and publicly labelled ‘mercenaries’; three women were released in September 2022 and Mali’s transitional leader Assimi Goïta pardoned the remaining 46 on 7 January 2023, resolving the crisis short of the direct border violence that has since characterized relations with Burkina Faso.

That more violent phase began on the night of 24–25 August 2025, when the border village of Difita in Téhini department was attacked, killing four people and burning homes; suspicion centres on Burkina Faso’s ‘Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland’ (VDP) militia, with local sources also suggesting the involvement of deserters from the Ivorian army. Shortly before, six Ivorian officials of the refugee-assistance agency DAARA were seized by VDP members at the border locality of Kalan 2 and taken into Burkinabè territory, echoing a similar capture of five Ivorian gendarmes near Doropo in June 2025, who were released roughly a week later.

Burkinabè authorities under Ibrahim Traoré have repeatedly accused Côte d’Ivoire of sheltering the junta’s enemies and serving as a ‘rear base’ for destabilization, allegations Abidjan has previously denied; relations with Mali’s transitional authorities have remained similarly strained since the 2022 detentions. Defence Minister Téné Birahima Ouattara, outlining 2026 priorities on 13 December 2025, named terrorism, organized crime, illegal gold mining, and maritime piracy as the principal threats – consistent with the Ministry’s February 2025 priorities – and described the security outlook for 2026 as ‘more serious’. A successor to the military programming law covering 2016–20 has been in preparation since at least February 2025, with its coverage period shifting from 2025–30 to 2026–30 by December 2025 as it continues through the legislative process.

Internal cohesion has also periodically strained Côte d’Ivoire’s defence posture. This fragility is rooted in the Army’s 2011 formation from rival loyalist and Forces Nouvelles factions, whose integration has never been complete. Pay-driven unrest recurred through the 2010s: soldiers in Bouaké and other garrison towns mutinied in November 2014 and again in January 2017 over wages and bonuses, seizing Bouaké and several other towns; a larger mutiny in May 2017 was resolved only when the government agreed to pay roughly 8,400 mutineers five million CFA francs immediately and a further two million CFA francs by the end of June. The settlement covered close to one third of all active personnel. Discipline problems recurred more locally thereafter, including a July 2017 attack on and theft from an elite security unit’s base and a January 2018 incident in which Bouaké-garrison soldiers looted and burned a similar base.

Defence spending is estimated at roughly US$697–778 million for 2024–2025, equivalent to under 1% of GDP — low by regional and Sahel-conflict-affected comparators, even as procurement volumes have risen sharply since 2022. The Senate’s Economic and Financial Affairs Commission adopted a 2026 budget-programme of 481.04 billion CFA francs (roughly US$800 million) for the General Administration, Defence, and Security programmes on 9 December 2025, which the Minister described as intended to ‘equip our nation with a sufficiently robust Defence tool’. Naval modernization is emblematic: the first of Côte d’Ivoire’s Israeli-built OPV-45 offshore patrol vessels, the Espérance, entered service in March 2023.

France’s permanent military presence in Côte d’Ivoire ended on 20 February 2025, when it formally handed over Port-Bouët, its last remaining base, home to roughly 1,000 troops, to Ivorian forces. A phased withdrawal through 2025 left 80 French personnel for advisory and training functions. The handover, mirroring French withdrawals from Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Chad, was framed by both sides as a transformation rather than an end to the relationship: French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu stated ‘France is transforming its presence, France is not disappearing’, while Ivorian Defence Minister Téné Birahima Ouattara announced the base would be renamed for General Thomas d’Aquin Ouattara, the Ivorian army’s first Chief of Staff. New cooperation agreements were signed alongside the handover, and France continues to provide training and limited equipment support, including periodic naval deployments to the Gulf of Guinea.

Composition of the Armed Forces      

The Forces Armées de Côte d’Ivoire (FACI) – named since a September 2011 rebranding of the post-conflict Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI), intended to reconcile former loyalist (FDS) and rebel (FAFN) forces after the 2010–11 crisis – comprise the Army, Navy, Air Force, and National Gendarmerie, together with Special Forces reporting directly to the presidency, under the overall command of the Chief of Staff General of the Armies.

Total active personnel are estimated at approximately 25,000–30,000, broadly consistent with World Bank data putting Côte d’Ivoire total armed forces personnel at 27,000 as of 2020. The separate National Gendarmerie, a military force under the Ministry of Defence dating to Côte d’Ivoire’s 1960 independence, numbers approximately 21,685 personnel, organized into 6 legions, comprising 32 companies and a total of 164 gendarmerie brigades, alongside specialized intervention, airport-security, and armoured units.

Army

The Army (Armée de Terre) is FACI’s largest branch, tasked with defending Côte d’Ivoire’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty. It has led the post-2020 counter-terrorism build-up in the north, a mission for which it remains relatively small and comparatively lightly equipped, with much of its legacy armour and logistics fleet reported to be of limited serviceability notwithstanding the substantial post-2016 procurement drive detailed below. The force has also periodically been strained by internal cohesion problems dating to its 2011 formation from rival loyalist and Forces Nouvelles factions and by the broader post-election-crisis accountability gap (see ‘Compliance with IHL by the Armed Forces’ below).

Air

The stated mission of the Côte d’Ivoire Air Force (Armée de l’Air Ivorienne) is to defend national airspace and support the other services with airlift; in practice it remains principally a transport and VIP-airlift force with only a thin combat element, a legacy of the November 2004 destruction of most of its combat aircraft by French forces and the UN arms embargo that followed.

Air-defence systems

Janes’ inventory records no Air Force-operated air-defence systems; ground-based air defence is operated by the Army (see above).

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

The Air Force’s most significant recent addition is the pair of Chinese Wing Loong II drones, publicly unveiled in August 2026 and reflected in Janes inventory (undated); though displayed unarmed, the type’s six hardpoints give Côte d’Ivoire a latent strike capability. Footage released by the Defence Ministry showed at least one aircraft fitted with a communications-intelligence pod, and Côte d’Ivoire’s military has described the drones as flying ISR missions with a strike role available if needed; the type can carry up to 480kg of ordnance across six underwing hardpoints, giving Côte d’Ivoire a latent strike capability not previously possessed.

Navy 

The Marine Nationale is a coastal navy operating from Abidjan, oriented toward counterpiracy patrol, fisheries protection, countertrafficking, and search-and-rescue along Côte d’Ivoire’s 515km coastline. Côte d’Ivoire has hosted the West Africa Regional Maritime Security Centre (CRESMAO) in Abidjan since its inauguration on 31 March 2022, part of the wider Yaoundé Architecture framework.

Naval aviation

Janes’ equipment-inventory table lists a single Navy entry, an Orbiter 3 UAV (Aeronautics Group, Israel), but records zero ordered, zero delivered, and zero in service, against a nominal 2024 ‘year of initial delivery’. On this data, the Navy currently has no naval aviation capability.

Recent and current operations

Operations against Islamist militants

Concern over jihadist spillover predates the June 2020 Kafolo attack: in June 2015, troops were deployed to the north following an attack by Ansar al-Din, an AQIM-allied group, in the Malian town of Fakola, near the Ivorian border. The March 2016 Grand-Bassam attack, which killed 19 people, and the emergence of JNIM in neighbouring Mali in March 2017 further entrenched the threat. Subsequent attacks targeted Ivorian security personnel deployed in the north and were widely assessed as linked to JNIM. On 11 June 2020, an attack on the joint army-gendarmerie post at Kafolo killed 14 personnel (13 soldiers and one gendarme) and wounded five; Janes records an initial toll of nine to 12, while the final figure was subsequently confirmed by the Ivorian authorities. 

Janes records further attacks on security personnel in Zanzan District on 28 January and 4 March 2022, and an armed attack repelled by security forces in Bounkani region, on 3 January 2022. The authorities subsequently strengthened the northern security architecture, including through the creation of the Zone Opérationnelle Nord (ZON) in July 2020 following the Kafolo attack. The ZON was intended to move from border surveillance to a defensive posture with the capacity to conduct offensive operations, strengthen troops deployed under Frontières étanches, and establish unified command of defence and security forces operating in the area.

International peacekeeping

Beyond its northern border-security posture, Côte d’Ivoire remains a contributor to UN peacekeeping, although its external deployment has contracted substantially since the withdrawal of MINUSMA. As of 30 June 2025, Côte d’Ivoire contributed 250 uniformed personnel across two missions: 234 to MINUSCA in the Central African Republic and 16 individual police officers to MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This represents a marked reduction from the deployment recorded by UNIDIR in March 2023, when Ivorian personnel were deployed across five missions, including 663 personnel in MINUSMA and 48 in MINUSCA. The reduction largely reflects the termination of MINUSMA following the completion of its withdrawal from Mali in December 2023.

Compliance with IHL and Human Rights by the Armed Forces

Legacy of the 2010–2011 post-election crisis

FACI’s institutional history is inseparable from the armed conflict that followed the disputed November 2010 presidential election, when forces loyal to outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo fought forces loyal to internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara, including the Forces Nouvelles/Forces Républicaines. The five-month crisis killed at least 3,000 people and involved widespread murders and sexual violence, with serious violations of IHL and human rights law committed by forces on both sides.

Human Rights Watch documented war crimes by Ouattara-aligned Republican Forces during their March 2011 offensive, including murders and sexual violence against civilians perceived to support Gbagbo. At Duékoué, where more than 300 people were killed in late March 2011, the organization attributed the massacre principally to pro-Ouattara forces and documented involvement of Republican Forces alongside allied militias.

Abuses linked to the post-election crisis continued after Gbagbo’s April 2011 capture. Human Rights Watch documented arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, extortion, and cruel, inhuman treatment and torture by members of the FRCI in 2012, including at military camps in Abidjan and Dabou, stressing that the security threat Côte d’Ivoire faced did not relieve the authorities of their obligation to conduct security operations within Ivorian and international law. Amnesty International separately reported in February 2013 that FRCI members had continued to commit widespread human rights violations against Gbagbo’s supporters through 2012–13, with apparent impunity. The UN Human Rights Council’s Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Côte d’Ivoire reported in 2012 on continuing accountability and reintegration concerns in this same period; the mandate was maintained through annual reporting cycles before the Council determined, later in the decade, that a country-specific mechanism was no longer warranted.

Accountability and institutional legacy

Accountability for the 2010–11 crisis has been decidedly uneven. A domestic Special Investigation Unit charged more than 150 people with serious crimes, including individuals from both sides; in relation to the Duékoué massacre, approximately 20 people were reportedly charged. However, the 2018 amnesty covered approximately 800 people accused or convicted of crimes connected to the crisis or subsequent violence, raising concerns that individuals implicated in serious violations could benefit from impunity; Amnesty International and other organisations specifically called for war crimes and crimes against humanity to be excluded from the amnesty.

The ICC’s investigation covered the conduct of forces on both sides of the conflict; its pre-trial process ultimately produced charges against two individuals, both associated with the pro-Gbagbo side (former president Laurent Gbagbo and former Young Patriots leader Charles Blé Goudé), both of whom were acquitted on appeal by the ICC Appeals Chamber in March 2021. The Gbagbo and Blé Goudé case itself proceeded on an arrest warrant for Gbagbo issued in November 2011 and a summons for Blé Goudé; both were tried jointly before Trial Chamber I, which acquitted them of all charges of crimes against humanity in January 2019, and the Appeals Chamber confirmed that acquittal, closing the case, on 31 March 2021.

A second, separate case — against Simone Gbagbo, former First Lady — proceeded on an arrest warrant issued under seal on 29 February 2012 and unsealed on 22 November 2012; Pre-Trial Chamber II granted the Prosecutor’s request to vacate that warrant on 19 July 2021, after concluding that the evidence underlying it could no longer meet the Rome Statute’s evidentiary threshold, in light of how the related case against Laurent Gbagbo had played out at trial and on appeal; the warrant accordingly ceased to have effect, so Simone Gbagbo is not – and cannot again be, absent a fresh warrant grounded in sufficient evidence – subject to any ICC process. The situation itself nonetheless remains formally open before Pre-Trial Chamber II: the Prosecutor’s investigative mandate under ICC-02/11 has not been closed, so further investigation, of individuals on either side of the 2010–11 conflict, in principle remains possible, even though no new case has been brought since 2015.

Gbagbo’s return to Côte d’Ivoire and to domestic politics after his acquittal has been framed by analysts as a renewed opportunity for national reconciliation, though FIDH’s most recent assessment found that, more than a decade on, ‘most proceedings have come to a halt; responsibilities have not been clearly determined’, leaving victims without meaningful judicial recourse.

This accountability record remains relevant to assessing institutional compliance, though it should not be read as evidence of continuing IHL violations by the present-day FACI; rather, it indicates a legacy of weak accountability for serious violations committed by forces subsequently incorporated into the national security architecture. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly identified impartial accountability for abuses by Ouattara-aligned forces as an important unresolved issue.

Northern Border Operations

The principal security challenge in northern Côte d’Ivoire is the expansion of jihadist activity from Burkina Faso and Mali; Janes identifies JNIM and Islamic State Sahel Province as significant threats and notes that the porosity of the northern borders has contributed to the risk of militant violence. No evidence reviewed for this profile indicates a systematic pattern of IHL violations by FACI units during recent northern counter-terrorism operations, though isolated allegations concerning security-force conduct, including a reported death in custody during an anti-terrorism investigation (see ‘Compliance with the Law of Law Enforcement and Human Rights by the Police’ below), have been reported, and continued monitoring of Ivorian counter-terrorism operations is warranted.

There are nevertheless grounds for continued monitoring of relations between security forces and communities in the north. The regional security environment has involved increasing tensions around Fulani/Peul communities, cross-border cattle trafficking, and perceptions of collaboration with jihadist groups; GI-TOC has documented JNIM’s exploitation of cattle-trafficking networks in the Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire–Ghana border area, and a July 2023 field study on Peul communities in the northern border zone documents rising inter-community suspicion and the circulation of rumours amid the security build-up, without itself substantiating discriminatory conduct by security forces specifically. This is a potential risk factor worth continued monitoring.

Domestic security operations

FACI, the gendarmerie, and the police have periodically been deployed for domestic security duties beyond active combat operations. Per Janes, ‘Operation Soothing Breeze’, launched in Abidjan in late August 2015 with roughly 1,800 officers, part of a nationwide deployment of 5,350 soldiers across Côte d’Ivoire’s 12 districts, helped secure the October 2015 presidential election, which passed off relatively calmly. Troops were also deployed during unrest surrounding the 2020 election; assessments of their conduct diverged, with Human Rights Watch criticizing security forces’ use of excessive force against protesters, whereas Côte d’Ivoire’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) issued a declaration ‘commending the professionalism and republican spirit’ of defence and security forces.

Compliance by Ivorian Peacekeeping Forces

Côte d’Ivoire’s current MINUSCA deployment began in November 2023, when a 180-strong rapid-reaction contingent deployed to Bria in the Central African Republic. MINUSCA recognized the contingent in November 2024 for its operational performance, civilian-protection patrols, and professionalism.

Key Weaponry in Law Enforcement Agencies

Legal framework

Côte d’Ivoire’s law-enforcement framework is dispersed across the Constitution, legislation governing the status and organisation of the security forces, the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, and specific regulatory instruments, rather than concentrated in a single comprehensive statute governing police use of force and firearms.

The National Police, under the Ministry of Interior and Security, is principally governed by Law No. 2001-479 of 9 August 2001 on the status of National Police personnel, as amended, supplemented by decrees on recruitment/training and on careers. The Interior Ministry put National Police strength at 23,986 officers per a 9 November 2022 Council of Ministers announcement. Article 1 establishes three police corps – non-commissioned officers, officers, and commissioners – and provides that National Police personnel are assimilated, as regards their status, to military personnel and fall under military justice on the same conditions as members of the armed forces and Gendarmerie.

Article 2 assigns the Police responsibility for protecting persons, property, and state institutions, combating crime, investigating offences and arresting offenders, gathering intelligence, and maintaining public order, expressly requiring that these missions be performed in accordance with the law, human rights, and the Police’s Code of Ethics. Article 37 makes every officer, irrespective of rank, individually responsible for orders given and missions entrusted to them, with the officer liable for damage caused by their own actions and the State liable for damage caused by an officer in service.

A decree adopted by the Council of Ministers on 27 June 2012 established a Code of Ethics for the National Police (Decree No. 2012-582), complementing the 2001 status law. Article 9 allows,when authorized by law, the use of force and, in particular, to use his or her weapon, as long as it is strictly necessary and proportionate to the objective to be achieved. Article 10 stipulates that any person apprehended shall be placed under the responsibility and protection of the police. He or she shall not be subjected, by the police officer or by third parties, to any inhuman or degrading treatment.

The Gendarmerie Nationale occupies a different legal position from the National Police: it is a military force under the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence identifies the Gendarmerie’s legal basis as Law No. 67-331 of 1 August 1967 regulating Gendarmerie service, describing it as ‘a military force instituted to safeguard public security, maintain order, and enforce the law, with the aim of protecting institutions, persons, and property’, performing administrative-police, judicial-police, and military-police functions. Gendarmerie personnel are consequently also subject to the 2016 Code of Military Service (Law No. 2016-1109 of 14 November 2016), which governs the general status of military personnel.

Côte d’Ivoire also has a distinct municipal-police framework. Decree No. 2015-101 of 18 February 2015 establishes the Municipal Police as a local service under the authority of the mayor, operating alongside the National Police and Gendarmerie. Article 3 assigns it responsibility for maintaining public order, safety, tranquillity, and public health within the commune, while Article 5 covers enforcement of municipal regulations, proximity policing of public spaces (markets, schools, and similar sites), and participation in securing sporting, recreational, or cultural events at the mayor’s request; notably, as the extortion reporting cited under Oversight, below, confirms, the decree does not give municipal police competence over road-traffic control or fine collection, a limit that appears to be exceeded in practice.

This framework has reportedly been supplemented by a July 2025 order (Arrêté n°0450/MIS/DGDDL) establishing a code of ethics for municipal police officers. Article 10 of this latter order also stipulates that when authorized by law to use force and, in particular, to use his or her weapon, a municipal police officer may only use force that is strictly necessary and proportionate to the threat and the objective to be achieved.

The 2016 Constitution guarantees the right to life and prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, degrading or humiliating treatment, but does not establish detailed rules governing police use of force. The 2018 Code of Criminal Procedure (Law No. 2018-975 of 27 December 2018, as amended) regulates judicial-police powers and criminal investigations, including the authority of judicial police officers to receive complaints, conduct preliminary investigations, and requisition the assistance of the public force to perform their duties. It does not though specify the necessity, proportionality, or other conditions that should govern the force that may be used.

The Penal Code provides a further general criminal-law limitation at Article 238, punishing an official who, without legitimate grounds, uses or causes violence to be used against persons in the exercise of their functions ‘according to the nature and gravity of the violence’ – a basis for after-the-fact criminal accountability, but not equivalent to a detailed operational framework specifying when officers may draw, point, or discharge a firearm.

The legal position on torture has changed materially since the Human Rights Committee’s 2015 review: Law No. 2024-358 of 11 June 2024 amended the Criminal Code to introduce a specific offence of torture at Article 399, punishable by 10–20 years’ imprisonment and a fine, rising to life imprisonment where the perpetrator is a public official, a public official instigated or consented to the act, or other aggravating circumstances apply; the amendment also provides that an order to commit torture is manifestly unlawful. This is a genuine improvement on the position the Human Rights Committee identified in 2015, when torture had not yet been established as a distinct offence.

Oversight

Law 2001-479 establishes the statutory status and disciplinary framework of the National Police, while the Police Code of Ethics establishes professional standards of conduct. Within the Police, the Inspection générale des services de sécurité (IGSS) is responsible for monitoring the functioning of police services, receiving complaints against police officers and conducting disciplinary investigations. In 2024, the IGSS reportedly received 395 complaints and conducted 82 field inspections, identifying 203 irregularities involving 207 police officers. This is an internal Ministry of the Interior mechanism, rather than an institution structurally independent from the police/security administration. 

Côte d’Ivoire also has an independent external human-rights oversight mechanism in the Conseil national des droits de l’homme (CNDH), established by Law 2018-900 of 30 November 2018. Its mandate includes receiving complaints concerning human-rights violations, conducting non-judicial investigations, making recommendations to the authorities, and visiting places of detention, including to help prevent torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The CNDH therefore provides an external avenue for complaints and human-rights monitoring, including in relation to police and other security forces, but it should not be equated with an independent police oversight commission. The Committee against Torture’s 2024 concerns about the independence and effectiveness of investigations therefore remain relevant.

Municipal policing presents a further accountability issue. Municipal police operate under the authority of mayors rather than through the national Police hierarchy, and recent reporting has alleged recurring extortion and other abuses in some municipalities. This creates a more fragmented oversight structure, particularly where municipal police conduct activities overlap with national public-order or traffic-enforcement functions that exceeds their competence under Decree No. 2015-101.

Police Compliance with the Law of Law Enforcement and Human Rights

Abuses in custody and counterterrorism operations

More recent reporting indicates a lower level of documented abuse than during the 2010–11 post-election crisis (see above), but allegations of ill-treatment and arbitrary conduct by security forces persist. The US Department of State’s 2023 human rights report recorded allegations of unlawful or arbitrary killings by State agents, including the reported torture to death during interrogation of an artisanal gold miner arrested after police suspected that explosives in his possession were intended for terrorist activities. Human rights organizations also reported that detainees and prisoners were routinely subjected to violence and abuse, including beatings and extortion, by security forces and prison officials. 

The pattern was also documented in earlier counterterrorism operations in the north. The US Department of State’s 2022 human rights report recorded allegations that Fulani (Peul) men in northern Côte d’Ivoire were arrested without cause, beaten and detained for up to two months without charge amid heightened security-force suspicion of links to violent extremism, and found more broadly that ethnic groups stereotyped as a security risk – the Fulani/Peul among them – were more likely to face extended detention without notice of charges; the same report noted that detainees at police or gendarmerie stations could be held beyond the statutory 48-hour period, renewable once. This complements the broader inter-community tension documented above.

As mentioned, the legal position on torture has improved since the Human Rights Committee’s 2015 review, when torture had not yet been established as a distinct offence. That 2015 review went further, specifically recording ‘numerous cases of torture by the police, defence and security forces, particularly at the National Surveillance Directorate’, finding that ‘perpetrators of acts of torture enjoy impunity’, and identifying ‘the lack of an independent and effective mechanism for receiving and investigating allegations of torture by the police and defence forces’, as continuing today.

The Committee against Torture’s 2024 – reviewing Côte d’Ivoire’s Initial report 28 years after its 1997 due date – provides the strongest recent international assessment of accountability; while welcoming the June 2024 legislation, the Committee remained concerned about continuing reports of torture and ill-treatment, the effectiveness of investigations and accountability, and the admissibility of evidence obtained through coercion or torture – concerns it illustrated with severe prison overcrowding (more than 27,000 detainees against an official capacity of 9,139) and at least one case in which torture-derived confessions were admitted against six defendants.

Public-order policing and the 2025 presidential election

The clearest recent test of Côte d’Ivoire’s police and gendarmerie compliance with international standards on the use of force arose in the run-up to the 25 October 2025 presidential election, in which President Ouattara secured a fourth term with a reported 89.77% of the vote. Two major opposition figures were excluded from the ballot – Tidjane Thiam (PDCI) disqualified in April 2025 over dual nationality, and Laurent Gbagbo (PPA-CI) excluded on the basis of his 2018 criminal conviction – prompting a Front Commun opposition coalition and sustained calls for protest.

The authorities responded with escalating restrictions on assembly, aimed in particular at demonstrations the Front Commun coalition (PPA-CI and PDCI-RDA) had called for on 4 and 11 October. On 2 October 2025, the National Security Council announced ‘necessary measures’ to maintain order, including a ban on meetings challenging Constitutional Council decisions; on 10 October, Abidjan’s Prefect banned all protests in the capital; and on 17 October an interministerial decree extended a nationwide ban on meetings and demonstrations for two months, with exceptions granted only to the five approved presidential candidates. Amnesty International’s 2026 annual report characterized these as blanket prohibitions of opposition gatherings, presumptively disproportionate and in tension with both the ICCPR and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, both treaties to which Côte d’Ivoire is party.

Security forces enforced the bans with tear gas and mass arrests. On 11 October 2025, police dispersed young people attempting to assemble peacefully in Abidjan’s Cocody district with tear gas, arresting 237 people in Abidjan and a further 18 in Dabou; the specific charges against those detained were not disclosed, prompting Amnesty International to call for their immediate release if held solely for the peaceful exercise of assembly rights. On 13 October, a 22-year-old man was shot and killed in the Bégnéri neighbourhood of Bonoua, reportedly by unidentified individuals travelling in a 4×4; he died later that evening at Abidjan’s CHU de Treichville, and the Direction de la Police Criminelle opened an investigation, with forensic support from the Police Scientifique, on the Public Prosecutor’s instruction. No further public update on this investigation — including whether any suspect has since been identified or charged — was found in sources reviewed through August 2026.

By 18 October, roughly 700 people had been arrested over the course of a week, according to both the public prosecutor’s figures and Amnesty International’s own count, and courts had begun handing down three-year prison sentences for ‘disturbance to public order’ and related offences. This covered around 50 people by 16 October per Amnesty, rising to 104 individuals sentenced between 16 and 21 October according to court reporting. Côte d’Ivoire’s National Security Council, in a communiqué dated 13 November 2025 put the cumulative toll of the post-11-October unrest at 11 deaths, including one Gendarmerie officer, 71 injured, and 1,658 arrests, and confirmed that some 44,000 security personnel had been deployed nationwide under an operation named ‘Espérance’. The Amnesty International 2026 annual report recorded that, in total, over 80 individuals received three-year prison sentences arising from the unrest, ‘most often for breach of public order’.

Separately, on 28 October 2025 – three days after the election – the Republic Prosecutor announced that individuals claiming to be members of the PPA-CI’s security service had been found in possession of military-grade weapons, characterizing the illegal detention of war weapons as an offence carrying five-to-ten-year sentences under Law 98-749, while offering ‘mitigating circumstances’ to those who voluntarily surrendered weapons rather than face prosecution. This episode illustrates the extent of unauthorized weapons circulating around opposition-aligned groups during the election period.

As of July 2026, counsel for the PPA-CI reported that, of the first group prosecuted for public-order offences, 213 had been acquitted and 399 sentenced to 36 months’ imprisonment, while a second group facing terrorism-related charges had not yet been tried; the party’s spokesperson claimed that more than 1,000 people remained imprisoned in connection with the protests — a figure that, as an opposition-party claim relayed through its own lawyer and spokesperson rather than an independently verified count, should be treated with caution. On 6 August 2026, on the eve of Côte d’Ivoire’s Independence Day, President Ouattara announced a clemency measure covering 4,661 detainees (2,064 presidential pardons and 2,597 sentence reductions), described only as applying to ‘common-law detainees convicted of minor offences’. None of the sources reviewed specify whether this measure extends to, or excludes, those convicted in connection with the October 2025 protests.

Accountability and oversight    

Beyond the domestic mechanisms already above discussed, the CAT’s 2024 findings, and the CNDH’s role as an external but non-binding national human-rights institution, Côte d’Ivoire has also been tested through an international individual-complaints mechanism, and has been the subject of continuing regional and international scrutiny, that together corroborate the implementation gap identified above. The Human Rights Committee’s individual-complaints tested this gap directly: in Views adopted in 2011, it found Côte d’Ivoire responsible for the extrajudicial execution and enforced disappearance of two cousins of complainant Zoumana Sorifing Traoré, alongside torture, secret detention, and inhuman conditions of detention, arising from their arbitrary arrest by men in military uniform during the September 2002 conflict escalation.

Regionally, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Côte d’Ivoire on 3 March 2011, during the post-election crisis, expressing concern over ‘violence marked by clashes between the civilian populations and the defence and security forces which… have given rise to hundreds of deaths’ and calling for a ceasefire and respect for the election result; the resolution should be read as a general expression of concern rather than a detailed factual finding.

At the international-criminal-law level, the ICC’s Côte d’Ivoire docket closed fully in mid-2021: following the March 2021 acquittal of Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé, the Prosecutor withdrew the outstanding charges against Simone Gbagbo on 30 July 2021, and no ICC proceedings arising from that conflict remain active.

Risk of Diversion and Re-Export of Imported Weapons

Stockpile security, marking, and record-keeping

Côte d’Ivoire retains a material diversion risk from national defence and security-force stocks, though stockpile management has improved significantly since the conflict period. GICHD’s Ammunition Management Activity Platform (A-MAP) country dashboard records two documented diversion events, both sourced to Holger Anders’ 2014 Small Arms Survey study of Ivorian ammunition: the 2002–12 conflict itself, which ‘resulted in … looted armouries and ammunition storage depots’ nationwide, and further armed violence in western Côte d’Ivoire in 2011 following Laurent Gbagbo’s capture, including ‘numerous attacks against defence and security installations’. UNIDIR’s 2016 baseline assessment separately found that Ivorian security personnel had, in the years after, integrated some of this battlefield-captured matériel directly into their own operational stockpiles to re-equip under-armed units — itself a form of uncontrolled diversion into State hands.

UNIDIR’s 2025 Weapons and Ammunition Management Country Insight, based on its March 2023 follow-up assessment, found that stockpile management is still not explicitly regulated by the national legal and regulatory framework (see National framework, above), though SOPs derived from a ComNat-ALPC guide are being implemented and still require harmonisation across the defence and security forces. Responsibility is institutionally divided and UNIDIR credits significant progress in rehabilitating storage infrastructure for the FACI, Gendarmerie, and Police, while flagging continuing infrastructure deficiencies (inadequate security at some sites, disorderly occupation of adjacent land) and recommending further physical securing of depots and updated, validated SOPs for each force.

Marking and record-keeping show similar substantial but incomplete progress. Approximately 9,806 weapons were marked to ECOWAS and international standards between 2016 and early 2023, though older stocks and new supplies still require marking, and four of the eleven marking machines the country had acquired were no longer operational by March 2023 for lack of maintenance. Recordkeeping remains fragmented in parallel: SIGAM, the National Security Council’s electronic arms- and ammunition-management system, was as of March 2023 still being piloted by the Police alone, with most storage sites lacking a wired-network connection – a degree of institutional fragmentation that falls short of the centralized electronic database Article 10 of the 2006 ECOWAS Convention requires. UNIDIR also notes the absence of any functioning historical register of civilian-held weapons, destroyed during the 2010–11 crisis and, in UNIDIR’s assessment, incapable of reconstitution.

Diversion into illicit circulation and civilian holdings

The conflict legacy documented above continues to shape Côte d’Ivoire’s diversion risk. Small Arms Survey research documented weapons from Ivorian government and security-force stocks entering regional illicit markets – weapons seized in Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria, and central Mali were traced back to Ivorian stocks – and continues to identify Côte d’Ivoire as part of a wider illicit-arms ecosystem connecting the Gulf of Guinea with Mali and Burkina Faso (see ‘Illicit arms trafficking and cross-border diversion’ below).

Domestically, the larger current vulnerability is the quantity of firearms held outside effective civilian regulation. New civilian firearms permits have been suspended since the 2010–11 crisis and, since permits carried a five-year validity, every permit issued beforehand has by now lapsed: This leaves lawful and unlawful holders alike in what UNIDIR terms an ‘illegal situation’, compounded by the destruction of the historical civilian register, which UNIDIR says cannot realistically be reconstituted. This leaves authorities unable to distinguish formerly lawful holdings from weapons acquired through theft, battlefield capture, or trafficking.

A 2021 voluntary collection campaign in the northern border regions recovered approximately 4,500 weapons, and national destruction programmes have continued; the 2021 campaign was voluntary and geographically limited, and the absence of a functioning civilian register makes the size of the remaining unregistered stock impossible to establish with any precision.

Artisanal firearms are a further, related source of weapons outside the formal control system. UNIDIR reports that most illicit weapons recovered and investigated by Ivorian authorities are artisanal and unregistered, and observes that their overall number remains unknown; it recommends gradual regulation, registration, and marking. Côte d’Ivoire’s reporting to the UN PoA describes patrols that have led to the arrest of artisanal gunmakers and the destruction of craft-manufacturing sites. This is consistent with GRIP’s finding that Ivorian artisanal gunsmithing is a long-standing traditional practice for which a formal registration and compliance framework is still being developed.

Illicit arms trafficking and cross-border diversion

Côte d’Ivoire remains exposed to cross-border trafficking through the northern tri-border area with Mali and Burkina Faso (see Strategic position and defence posture, above, on the deteriorating security relationship with both juntas). Small Arms Survey research identifies Côte d’Ivoire both as a transit environment for regional arms trafficking and as a historical source of weapons diverted from State and conflict-era stocks, documenting established smuggling routes — including the Ferkessédougou–Ouangolodougou corridor toward Burkina Faso and Mali, and the Bondoukou–Bouna–Varalé–Doropo corridor further east – typically moving small, dispersed quantities alongside other illicit goods; UNIDIR frames this as ‘trickle-down trafficking’, informal diffusion through existing community and trade networks that is inherently difficult to interdict.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s Organized Crime Index adds two further findings. Its 2023 edition rated Côte d’Ivoire’s arms-trafficking market at 7.0/10 and, more significantly, reported that ‘government forces have also been implicated in arms trafficking, with security officials known to rent their weapons to unauthorized users and facilitate cross-border movements of arms’ – the strongest open-source evidence identified of a direct State-stock diversion mechanism involving serving personnel. The 2025 edition puts the score at 6.5/10 and identifies Ouangolodougou, in the northern Tchologo region, as a major transit point for weapons flowing in from as far as Guinea and Liberia, alongside clandestine gunsmith networks supplying cattle rustling, kidnapping, and extortion (see Strategic position and defence posture, above). The 2025 edition does not repeat the 2023 security-officials-renting-weapons finding, so this profile raises the question of its continuing currently-verified practice.

National capacity to prevent and detect diversion

Côte d’Ivoire has developed substantial, if still incomplete, national capacity to prevent and investigate diversion. The National Security Council and ComNat-ALPC coordinate weapons and ammunition management at the strategic level, while the FACI, Gendarmerie, and Police maintain their own systems; the Police are piloting SIGAM, and authorities are separately considering ‘Arms Tracker’ (CAVR) software. Côte d’Ivoire has also built institutional capacity against online arms-trafficking channels — the DITT, SATT, and PLCC monitor illicit online activity generally, including arms trafficking, though PoA reporting gives no indication of their effectiveness specifically against SALW.

Tracing capacity has also improved: Ivorian authorities use INTERPOL’s iARMS system, which UNIDIR states has already contributed to investigations, including into the March 2016 Grand-Bassam attack and the forensic police possess ballistics and identification capabilities, including tools for recovering erased markings. The principal remaining limitation is that many recovered illicit weapons are artisanal and unregistered; UNIDIR also identifies a continuing need for a designated national tracing-coordination entity and additional technical resources.

The institutional framework nevertheless retains gaps: as of March 2023, UNIDIR found the review and harmonization of the WAM legal framework still incomplete, the draft general law on weapons and ammunition still awaiting governmental processing, and transfer controls for export, re-export, transit, trans-shipment, and brokering similarly incomplete. Côte d’Ivoire nevertheless continues to participate in regional WAM cooperation.