The United Nations (UN) mission in Côte d’Ivoire confirmed on Thursday that international peacekeepers had met a heavily-armed group of fighters who said they were Liberian
The report came after presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara’s camp accused Laurent Gbagbo’s regime of hiring Liberian mercenaries to carry out killings in Abidjan, a charge denied by the incumbent’s supporters.
Asked at a briefing whether the United Nations had seen any evidence of Liberian combattants, UN spokesperson Hamadoun Toure said: “Yes, our patrols have met a group of people speaking English and claiming to be Liberian.
“They were on their own, at night, in Abidjan. They won’t allow me to disclose a lot of details on this,” he said, apparently referring to his superiors in the UNOCI peacekeeping operation.
Asked whether the group was armed, he said: “Yes. Heavily armed.”
Toure was speaking as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva heard reports that Côte d’Ivoire has seen 173 killings and nearly 500 reports of arrests or disappearances in the country over the past week.
Côte d’Ivoire has been paralysed by a serious political crisis for two weeks since both Gbagbo and Ouattara claimed to have won last month’s election. Both have had themselves declared president.
The United Nations has recognised Ouattara as the new Ivorian leader, but the incumbent has refused to loosen his iron grip on power and has deployed loyalist security forces to crush protests against his rule.
UN: At least 173 killed
The United Nations says at least 173 people have been killed in the Côte d’Ivoire and 90 others tortured or treated inhumanely because of post-election violence in the West African nation.
UN deputy human rights commissioner Kyung-wha Kang told diplomats on Thursday that human rights officers documented the killings and torture cases between December 16 and 21.
She also told the UN Human Rights Council at a special session on the Côte d’Ivoire that the rights advocates had substantiated at least 471 arrests and detentions and 24 cases of people who disappeared involuntarily.
She said, however, that restrictions imposed on UN personnel have made it “impossible” to investigate all the allegations the UN received about serious human rights violations there — including reports of mass graves.– Sapa-AFP, AP