Nina rarely ventures outside of her house in Cote d'Ivoire's commercial capital, Abidjan, since her 5-year-old son, Benitier, was kidnapped and mutilated in November. She won't let her oldest son go to school.
"When I see cars with tinted windows or people who look a bit odd passing in the street, I start to panic," 30-year-old Nina, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her family, said in an interview in Yopougon, a sprawling municipality in north Abidjan. "I imagine an abduction."
As many as 20 children have been killed, four of whom were found mutilated, in Cote d'Ivoire in the past three months in what some academics and government officials say may be crimes related to elections or organ trafficking. The authorities responded by deploying 1,500 soldiers and police officers to schools, public places and forests and setting up emergency phone lines, including one named "Allo Child in Distress."