A WOMAN SEPARATES THE RICE FROM THE SHEATH IN IVORY COAST.

Three years after the civil war, patriotic sentiment is running high on Independence Day in Ivory Coast. But in seven, small hamlets hidden in the lush green cocoa fields of the central belt, the villagers are more adamant than most to prove their loyalty to the nation.

Their ancestral roots lie in Burkina Faso, and people in this community had until recently faced discrimination for almost 80 years. Locals beat them and accused them of being foreigners, police restricted their movement and courts denied them justice.

For decades, they cried: “but we’re Ivorian!”

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