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Guns Guns Guns
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For four long months Ivory Coast's internationally recognized president was confined to a besieged Abidjan hotel, at the mercy of United Nations troops for protection. Now it is his rival who's holed up in a basement bunker, unwilling to surrender power even as the nation plunges deeper by the day into chaos.
Disturbing new reports surfaced Friday of killings and abuses that human rights groups say have plagued Ivory Coast since a disputed November election threw the West African country into turmoil.
More than 100 bodies were recovered in the past 24 hours in western Ivory Coast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.
Human rights teams found 15 more bodies in Duekoue, the cocoa-rich town where last week, several agencies reported a massacre of up to 800 people. The U.N. rights agency said so far, 244 bodies have now been recovered in that incident, the bloodiest episode yet.
The victims are believed to have been mostly or all of Guerre people, who have traditionally supported Laurent Gbagbo, the defiant president who refuses to step down. Some of the victims were burned alive, the U.N. said.
In the town of Blolequin, human rights investigators said the perpetrators of killings were Liberian mercenaries, who separated out the Guerre and spared them from slaughter.
Nearly 150,000 people have now fled their homes Ivory Coast's war, displaced within the country or seeking refuge in neighboring nations, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
Refugees said they were tired, hungry and exhausted after arriving in Liberia's Maryland county, some by foot, others by canoe. Some reported seeing dead bodies on their way to Liberia.
Sporadic gunfire rang out Friday in the largest city of Abidjan, where Gbagbo remained hunkered down in the basement of his residence, guarded by about 200 of his men.
Despite being surrounded by Ouattara's troops and a warning from the U.N. chief that he should seize his last chance for a graceful exit, Gbagbo showed no willingness to budge.
Ouattara took to the airwaves Thursday night blaming Gbagbo for Ivory Coast's suffering.
"The stubbornness of the outgoing president brought Abidjan to a humanitarian crisis," he said in a nationally televised address.
Mercenaries, Ouattara said, "have established a climate of terror and insecurity in the city."
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/08/ivory.coast.war/
Disturbing new reports surfaced Friday of killings and abuses that human rights groups say have plagued Ivory Coast since a disputed November election threw the West African country into turmoil.
More than 100 bodies were recovered in the past 24 hours in western Ivory Coast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.
Human rights teams found 15 more bodies in Duekoue, the cocoa-rich town where last week, several agencies reported a massacre of up to 800 people. The U.N. rights agency said so far, 244 bodies have now been recovered in that incident, the bloodiest episode yet.
The victims are believed to have been mostly or all of Guerre people, who have traditionally supported Laurent Gbagbo, the defiant president who refuses to step down. Some of the victims were burned alive, the U.N. said.
In the town of Blolequin, human rights investigators said the perpetrators of killings were Liberian mercenaries, who separated out the Guerre and spared them from slaughter.
Nearly 150,000 people have now fled their homes Ivory Coast's war, displaced within the country or seeking refuge in neighboring nations, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.
Refugees said they were tired, hungry and exhausted after arriving in Liberia's Maryland county, some by foot, others by canoe. Some reported seeing dead bodies on their way to Liberia.
Sporadic gunfire rang out Friday in the largest city of Abidjan, where Gbagbo remained hunkered down in the basement of his residence, guarded by about 200 of his men.
Despite being surrounded by Ouattara's troops and a warning from the U.N. chief that he should seize his last chance for a graceful exit, Gbagbo showed no willingness to budge.
Ouattara took to the airwaves Thursday night blaming Gbagbo for Ivory Coast's suffering.
"The stubbornness of the outgoing president brought Abidjan to a humanitarian crisis," he said in a nationally televised address.
Mercenaries, Ouattara said, "have established a climate of terror and insecurity in the city."
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/08/ivory.coast.war/
