A third mass grave has been discovered in Côte d’Ivoire, according to the United Nations, following weeks of politically motivated killings that have raised fears of a new civil war.
After two days of deadly clashes it was also claimed that a UN vehicle had been set ablaze and its driver dragged out and beaten.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told Reuters that her officials had been denied access to three mass graves including a site alleged to contain 80 bodies.
“I am very concerned now that a third mass grave has been discovered,” Pillay said in Geneva. “Not only my representative there but the UN representative has not been allowed access to the mass graves.”
The new grave is alleged to be located at Issia, near Daloa, but UN officials have not been able to verify its existence, according to Pillay’s spokesperson Rupert Colville.
Pillay voiced deep concern that there has been no political settlement between president Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, whom the UN says won the November 28 election. Gbagbo disputes the result and has refused to step down.
She denounced an attack that left three UN peacekeepers injured when their patrol was ambushed by forces loyal to Gbagbo in Abidjan on Tuesday evening.
‘Grave risk’
“I am very concerned because the UN contingent that went to investigate allegations of killings was fired upon,” said Pillay, a former UN war crimes judge from South Africa. “So what we all hoped for, a negotiated settlement, stands at grave risk to me because Mr Gbagbo is arming his supporters who in turn are going around killing and also ambushing a UN contingent.”
Claims of another attack on the UN have emerged. A witness who declined to be identified said students loyal to Gbagbo had set up a makeshift roadblock in the Riviera II neighbourhood of Abidjan and forced a UN vehicle to stop.
They dragged the driver out of the four-wheel drive and beat him while another group smashed the vehicles windows and set it on fire, the witness said. Riviera II is a Gbagbo stronghold.
The UN mission in Abidjan said it was looking into the attack and could not yet comment.
The witness said the students tried to stop a UN truck that drove by shortly afterwards. It got past but the students grabbed a bag filled with what appeared to be UN peacekeeping uniforms, which some of them put on.
Gbagbo’s army chief, Philippe Mangou, has declared that his troops reserve the right to retaliate after two days of clashes in an opposition stronghold left at least four civilians and seven police officers dead. Authorities have imposed a curfew in Abobo, a suburb in Abidjan, and sent in a convoy of military trucks.
‘Equal to acts of war’
Mangou said on state TV: “In order to find these people attacking the republic inside their hiding places, the armed forces of Ivory Coast want all human rights organisations, as well as the national and international community, to know that these attacks against us are equal to acts of war — putting us in a position of legitimate self-defence.”
More than 200 people have died in political violence since the election and more than 25 000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Liberia, according to UN figures.
Last month Pillay revealed that she had written to Gbagbo and senior military officials warning they may be held criminally accountable for human rights violations. She said today: “This needed to be done — as you know I served as a judge on the Rwanda tribunal so I am very concerned about taking immediate steps to prevent what might well lead to ethnic killings in Cote d’Ivoire.
“The question now being discussed within the UN is the urgency of military intervention, not only to protect UN peacekeepers.” – guardian.co.uk