We'll starve out Gbagbo, says Ouattara
2011-04-08 15:02
Abidjan - Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader said his forces will starve out the entrenched strongman who remains holed up underground at the presidential residence and that he'll focus on normalising life in this corpse-strewn, terrorised city.
As the political stalemate dragged on in Abidjan, there were new concerns about tensions erupting into deadly violence in the country's west. The UN said more than 100 bodies have been found, and said some of the victims had been burned alive.
"All the incidents appear at least partly ethnically motivated," said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.
The International Rescue Committee is warning that chaos is permeating this West African nation once split in two by a 2002-2003 civil war, citing an "explosive mix of political, economic and ethnic tension".
"We're concerned that looting, hostility, bloodshed, reprisal killings and sexual assaults will escalate in communities across the country," said Louis Falcy, the IRC's country director in Ivory Coast.
Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of November elections, said on TV late on Thursday that his forces are setting up a security perimeter around the presidential compound where Gbagbo, who insists he won the elections, is staying with his family. The goal, Ouattara said, is to wait for Gbagbo to run out of food and water.
Ouattara said his troops will work to secure Abidjan, where people have hidden inside their homes this week amid heavy fighting between troops loyal to Ouattara and those who are with Gbagbo.
Political standoff
The streets of Ivory Coast's biggest city and commercial centre were deserted on Friday. Military vehicles had to negotiate around bodies lying in the streets. An untold number of fighters and civilians have been killed in Abidjan in the past week.
The UN and French forces have been attacking Gbagbo's weapons arsenal, which has been used against civilians during the four-month-long political standoff.
In his speech, Ouattara also sought to jump-start the economy of the world's largest cocoa producer, calling for banks to reopen on Monday and for the European Union to lift sanctions so that cocoa exports can resume, even as UN and French forces continue evacuating hundreds of foreigners from Abidjan neighbourhoods to guarded camps.
The UN said peacekeepers and human rights officials discovered about 60 bodies in the western town of Guiglo. Rupert said another 40 corpses were found lying the street in Blolequin, and many of them had been shot. Fifteen other bodies were found in Duekoue, where violence already has left at least 229 dead in recent weeks.
Rupert said mercenaries from neighbouring Liberia did some of the killings. Liberia is still recovering from its own devastating civil war and human rights groups have expressed concern that Liberian ex-combatants were going to Ivory Coast as hired guns.
- AP
