800 dead in Ivory Coast violence around Duekoue city, says Red Cross

[Peikko 1,575]

My link

Rival forces in Ivory Coast are continuing their battle for power as it emerged that more than 800 people were killed this week in inter-ethnic violence in the town of Duekoue.

Soldiers backing the country's UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, clashed with forces loyal to the voted-out president, Laurent Gbagbo, in the country's main city and former capital, Abidjan.

Gbagbo's military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Alphonse Guano, made a televised address after his forces retook the state TV headquarters on Saturday.

Guano called on security forces to report for duty to resist attacks by forces loyal to the internationally recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, whose fighters now control about 80% of the country.

Pro-Ouattara forces made a rapid advance through the country this week. The International Committee of the Red Cross has said at least 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in Duekoue believed to have taken place on Tuesday, the day after the town in the west of Ivory Coast was taken by the pro-Ouatarra fighters.

It is not clear what prompted the killings and whether Ouattara's forces were involved.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had received "unconfirmed but worrying reports" that the pro-Ouattara force "has been committing human rights violations" during the advance toward Abidjan.

But the faction has denied taking any part in the attrocities and blamed any killings on the retreating Gbagbo fighters.

Red Cross spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said delegates from the Ivorian Red Cross had visited Duekoue on Thursday and Friday to gather evidence and saw a "huge number of bodies".

"We have information that at least 800 persons were killed on 29 March in Duekoue in intercommunal violence," Krimitsas told Reuters. "Our colleagues saw hundreds of bodies. We strongly suspect that was the result of intercommunal violence. Since Monday or so tens of thousands of people have fled the area. This is not the first time there has been intercommunal violence in Duekoue."

The head of the ICRC delegation in the country, Dominique Liengme, said in a statement: "This incident is particularly shocking in its size and brutality.

"The ICRC condemns direct attacks on civilians and reminds the parties to the conflict to make sure that people in the territory under their control must be protected under all circumstances."

The ICRC said tens of thousands of women, men and children had fled fighting in Duekoue since Monday.

Gunfire and the sound of heavy weapons fire rang out across Abidjan as the country's former rebels pressed an offensive to oust Gbagbo, who is refusing to leave office.

Pro-Ouatarra fighters met with resistance from Gbagbo fighters around strategic locations like the presidential palace, the state broadcaster RTI and military bases.

Residents said they heard loud explosions near the Agban base, the city's largest, in the Adjame neighbourhood near Cocody where Gbagbo has his official residence.

"Mortar fire has been heard since late last night around the gendarmerie. It is very loud and we're taking shelter in our homes," said local resident Jules Konin.

"The gendarmes from the camp are fighting the insurgents," said another resident, Adi Saba.

Ouattara was internationally recognised as president last year after the electoral commission declared him the winner of a November run-off vote. But Gbagbo also claimed victory. Sanctions have failed to dislodge Gbagbo.

The four-month standoff since the election has killed nearly 500 people, according to UN figures, although the real toll is probably far higher. Around one million people have fled Abidjan alone and 122,000 more have crossed into Liberia, the UN says.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

WHAT???????? Britian should do something about this! Wait. Oh. NM, no oil involved.

[Peikko 1,575]

WHAT???????? Britian should do something about this! Wait. Oh. NM, no oil involved.

More drivel from the dregs of the peanut gallery.

[mawilson 2,133]

More drivel from the dregs of the peanut gallery.

You don't get to call it drivel until we see a UN resolution and a coalition to protect Ivory Coast civilians from being slaughtered.

[Peikko 1,575]

You don't get to call it drivel until we see a UN resolution and a coalition to protect Ivory Coast civilians from being slaughtered.

Yes I do. Gary doesn't care one whit for any of them, his comment was just what I said it was.

Whether there should in fact be a less self serving policy in terms of when, where and how the West intervenes militarily in conflicts is a very serious question and one that deserves more than a drive by swipe at me via Britain's foreign policy decisions, which one can be sure Gary knows ###### all about.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Muslims face growing attacks in Ivory Coast crisis

By MARCO CHOWN OVED | AP

As dozens of mourners gathered at a mosque, the twisted wreckage of a burned car lay outside — another sign of the growing campaign of violence against Muslims who widely support Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of November’s presidential election.

Ouattara, who is Muslim, is locked in a battle with the entrenched president Laurent Gbagbo for power, and their conflict is veering dangerously toward sectarian violence.

At least 10 mosques across Abidjan have been set ablaze, and another was abandoned after attackers threw a grenade through a window during prayers.

“Us Muslims, we’re not safe. We are the object of every kind of violence. We’re afraid. We don’t know how this is going to end,” said Imam Idriss Koudouss, president of the National Islamic Council. “And we aren’t even involved in politics.” Ouattara supporters also have been beaten to death with bricks, even doused with gasoline and burned alive. Cell phone videos of the horrors are traded on the street and broadcast on state television along with calls to arms.

“It’s the political manipulation of ethnicity,” said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.

“The root of the conflict is competition for political power and the fault lines are drawn along religious, ethnic and national lines.”

November’s presidential election was supposed to reunite the country after a 2002-2003 civil war split it into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south. But when Gbagbo refused to recognize UN-certified results showing that he lost, Ivory Coast was plunged back into a cycle of violence.

The UN says up to 1 million people have fled the fighting and at least 462 people have been killed, though Ouattara’s camp puts the toll at 832. The vast majority of these deaths were Ouattara supporters who were abducted and killed by Gbagbo-allied security forces, human rights groups say.

“We’re afraid. Everyone’s leaving,” said Abdias Goita, a father of two who waited outside the Malian embassy for evacuation Friday. “My brother had his door broken down by pro-Gbagbo militias. He gave them all the money he had — about 200,000 francs ($430) — but they slit his throat anyway.” During the presidential campaign, little was made of the fact that Ouattara would be Ivory Coast’s first Muslim president, drawing much of his support from the north. In the aftermath though, pro-Gbagbo police and militias have been widely accused of targeting Muslims because they are perceived as being defacto Ouattara supporters.

Last week, riot police showed up at Imam Sissouma’s mosque, arresting him and his son and taking the offering box. A fellow imam immediately called the interior minister to plead for their release and thought everything would be fine when Sissouma’s wife called to say they were back at home, safe and sound.

But Sissouma’s wife called back a half hour later to say the riot police had executed him and five other people, including his elderly mother.

Interior Minister Emile Guirieoulou acknowledged receiving the call, but refused to confirm the arrests or the killings, because the investigation is ongoing.

“In Ivory Coast, there have never been religious problems, Christians and Muslims live side by side. This tragic incident is a pure result of the political crisis,” said Imam Moussa Drame, whose own mosque was attacked in December.

Some 38.6 percent of Ivorians are Muslim, and 32.8 percent are Christians, according to the CIA World Factbook. An inter-religious council, made up of Christian and Muslim leaders is one of the country’s most respected institutions.

But xenophobia has long been a problem in this country, which has attracted millions of immigrant laborers from neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. They came to work on plantations, especially cocoa farms that produce the raw material that goes into much of the world’s chocolate.

Resolving who would even be allowed to vote in the presidential election took years.

Now armed youth who support Gbagbo are stopping and threatening people at makeshift roadblocks across Abidjan.

Those with northern or Muslim names are accused of being pro-Ouattara rebels, and are beaten or killed, activists say.

Human Rights Watch reported dozens of ethnically and religiously motivated killings earlier this month, often carried out by the police or by pro-Gbagbo youth with police consent. Ouattara supporters were beaten to death “with bricks, clubs, and sticks, or doused them with gas and burned them alive.” Cell phone videos of the incidents have been posted on YouTube and Facebook, often accompanied by dehumanizing and anti-Muslim comments.

Fueling the fire is a relentless campaign of what the UN has called “lies” and “propaganda” on Gbagbo-controlled state television. The Radio-Television Ivorienne (RTI) is referred to by some foreign journalists as TV Mille Collines, in reference to the radio station that encouraged the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

In one report aired last week, the anchorman smiled as he described a dozen alleged rebels killed by pro-Gbagbo soldiers in central Abidjan as “culled like little birds.” Graphic images of their bloodied bodies were interspersed with images of soldiers giving each other high five and cheering crowds.

“The future Gbagbo proposes for his country is war, anarchy and violence, with ethnic, religious and xenophobic dimensions,” wrote Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group, in an open letter this week.