The incident on September 28 has drawn broad international condemnation of the ruling military junta led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, with the European Union on Tuesday saying it would impose an arms embargo.
"Security forces surrounded and blockaded the stadium, then stormed in and fired at protesters in cold blood until they ran out of bullets," Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
"They carried out grisly gang rapes and murders of women in full sight of the commanders. That’s no accident."
The United Nations said it was preparing for any and all eventualities in the world’s top bauxite supplier. It also said a deterioration of the situation risks destabilising the region even though there was no evidence to support reports of cross-border recruitment in
Human Rights Watch said Camara and some of his closest military associates in the National Campaign for Democracy and Development (CNDD) junta should face criminal prosecution for the incident, characterized by rapes and ethnic abuses.
"Witnesses said that many of the killers and rapists made ethnically biased comments during the attacks, insulting and appearing to target the Peuhl, the majority ethnicity of the opposition supporters," HRW said.
The Presidential Guard, commonly known as the "red berets", were the main culprits, it said. "Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 27 victims of sexual violence, the majority of whom were raped by more than one person. Witnesses described seeing at least four women murdered by members of the Presidential Guard after being raped, including women who were shot or bayoneted in the vagina."
Source: Jeune Afrique