Standoff persists in Ivory Coast as crisis deepens
Ivory Coast's UN-recognised president Alassane Ouattara enforced a blockade yesterday around his rival Laurent Gbagbo's Abidjan residence, as the United Nations said it had found more than 100 bodies in the west of the country.
Reports of massacres in west Ivory Coast emerged as Ouattara's forces swept through the region on their way to confronting Gbagbo in the economic capital, where the humanitarian situation was dire yesterday, with bodies lying on the streets and shortages of food, water and medicines.
"The human rights team investigating... in west Cote d'Ivoire found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours in three locations," Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva.
Ouattara promised in a televised address Thursday that "light will be shed" on reports of massacres and other crimes.
Several hundred people were reportedly massacred in the western town of Duekoue last week, with forces loyal to Gbagbo and Ouattara blaming each other and the International Criminal Court in The Hague announcing a formal probe.
In Abidjan, residents reported gunfire and explosions. Gbagbo was still holding out in a bunker in the presidential residence after Ouattara's forces failed to remove him in an aborted assault on Wednesday.
French forces later bombarded Gbagbo's positions in a bid to destroy heavy weaponry, and a Western source said the aim was "to hit a maximum of objectives in order to reduce the potential for resistance".
"We have entered the post-Gbagbo era. The end is now in sight," French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists in Paris. "The Gbagbo era is now over."
In Washington US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN chief Ban Ki-moon issued an alert on a potential humanitarian crisis while denouncing attacks on UN peacekeepers.
But Toussaint Alain, an aide to Gbagbo, dismissed the call for reconciliation, calling Ouattara an "imposter" and insisting Gbagbo would not step down.
UN Secretary General Ban urged Gbagbo to quit power before it was "too late" while the Ivory Coast ambassador to the UN said he would be taken and put on trial.
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