UN warns of Ivory Coast civil war

Ivory Coast risks returning to civil war unless former president Laurent Gbagbo accepts his election defeat, UN head Ban Ki-moon warned today.

The UN and world leaders recognise Alassane Ouattara as the winner of last month’s disputed presidential election.

But Mr Gbagbo has refused to remove his forces which are surrounding the building where his rival is based.

The UN has said those inside are not getting needed medication, and that delivery of food and water also has been hampered.

Mr Gbagbo ordered UN peacekeepers out of the country over the weekend but they refused to leave, instead extending the mission’s mandate through to June. Hundreds of UN peacekeepers are guarding the Golf Hotel, where Mr Ouattara is based.

Yesterday Mr Gbagbo said “the international community has declared war on Ivory Coast.”

“I call on those who are still in the Golf Hotel to go home. No one will prevent you from leaving.”

Fears have risen that UN personnel and other foreigners could be targeted in violence as tensions mount over the election.

Over the weekend, masked gunmen opened fire on the UN base in Ivory Coast, though no one was harmed in the attack.

Two military observers were wounded in another attack. The UN also says armed men have been intimidating UN staff at their private homes.

The UN secretary-general also said today that the peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast has “confirmed that mercenaries, including freelance former combatants from Liberia, have been recruited to target certain groups in the population.”

Ivory Coast’s 2002-2003 civil war saw the involvement of Liberians fighting on nearly all sides of the conflict. Liberia itself suffered back-to-back civil wars that lasted until 2003, and the two countries share a porous, 370-mile border.

Liberia’s president has urged citizens not to get involved in Ivory Coast’s latest political crisis.

Mr Ban also said forces loyal to Mr Gbagbo are obstructing the movement of UN staff and their operations and called on member states to do what they can to supply the UN mission.

The UN says more than 50 people have been killed in recent days in Ivory Coast, and that it has received hundreds of reports of people being abducted from their homes at night by armed assailants in military uniforms.

“It is clear that more and more people are being illegally detained by security forces or armed militiamen and we fear that many of them may have been killed or have disappeared,” said Amnesty International.

Ivory Coast was once an economic hub because of its role as the world’s top cocoa producer. The 2002-2003 civil war split the country into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south. While the country officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal, Mr Ouattara still draws his support from the northern half of the country where he was born while Mr Gbagbo’s power base is in the south.