The United Nations (UN) warns that violence is spreading across Côte d’Ivoire, far from the city where the country’s political rivals are squaring off.
Local UN human rights chief Simon Munzu said on Thursday that 23 women have been raped in the last week in western Côte d’Ivoire, where 16 000 people have taken refuge. Another 29 000 people have fled across the border to Liberia.
The UN said on Thursday that violence since the disputed November presidential runoff election has left 260 people dead.
Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power even though the international community says his rival Alassane Ouattara won the vote.
The UN voted Wednesday to send 2 000 more peacekeepers to the volatile West African country.
Militaries ready to act
Meanwhile, West African armies are ready to intervene in Côte d’Ivoire and only need the political nod to go ahead, a Nigerian general said Thursday.
General Olusegun Petinrin was speaking after Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) military chiefs wrapped up talks in Mali, as another attempt by the African Union’s mediator failed to persuade Gbagbo to quit.
West African nations have threatened to send in troops to dislodge Gbagbo, who remains immovable after a November 28 presidential poll that the election commission — and most of the international community — said he lost to Ouattara.
“We are ready on the military level. It is up to heads of state to give us instructions,” Petinrin said.
The meeting that opened in the Malian capital Bamako on Tuesday was devoted largely to planning for using military force, if called on, to make Gbagbo cede power.
“We are now waiting to hear from the heads of state: if they tell us to go to the Côte d’Ivoire to restore democracy, we will go,” a military source told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Another officer from Nigeria, whose President Goodluck Jonathan is the current Ecowas chairperson, said the regional force would work with the UN operation in Côte d’Ivoire “if the military intervention is decided on”.
‘The AU has decided that Gbagbo has lost’
Ecowas, which suspended the regional economic powerhouse in early December, has threatened the military option should mediation fail to persuade Gbagbo to leave peacefully.
Ecowas military chiefs in December outlined an intervention force headed by Nigeria which would also provide the most troops including a combat squadron and attack helicopters.
The AU envoy, Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga, left Côte d’Ivoire on Wednesday with no breakthrough after talks with both Ggagbo and Ouattara.
He was in Angola on Thursday and planned to later travel to South Africa for talks on the crisis, his spokesperson Dennis Onyango said.
He dismissed comments from Gbagbo’s foreign minister that Odinga was no longer wanted as mediator in Côte d’Ivoire.
“He did not go there to negotiate with Gbagbo,” Onyango told AFP. “He is AU envoy and whatever Gbagbo’s people say about his mediation does not matter. His rejection does not matter. He is AU envoy.”
“[Odinga’s] mandate is that the AU has decided that Gbagbo has lost,” Onyango said.
“He gave him the message. He rejected it because he did not move from his position. The PM made it very clear if the AU position of peaceful resolution failed, force will be used.”
Ouattara’s signature
Odinga went to neighbouring Ghana, which opposes using force in the crisis, after leaving Abidjan, then to Mali and Burkina Faso. All three are Ecowas members.
On Thursday he was due to meet Angola President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, whose country is one of the few to have shown support for Gbagbo.
Ouattara’s prime minister Guillaume Soro meanwhile had talks on Thursday in Ouagadougou with Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore on his first official sortie out of the UN-protected Abidjan hotel where he is holed up with his boss.
He told journalists he was bringing a message from Ouattara concerning a summit of the eight-member mainly French-speaking West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) taking place in Bamako on Saturday.
Soro said he would attend the summit to ensure the application of a decision by the grouping’s finance chiefs to accept Ouattara’s signature on Côte d’Ivoire’s accounts in UEMOA’s Central Bank of West African States.
He said he would meanwhile be visiting Togo, Niger and Nigeria, where he would have talks with Jonathan in Abuja. — Sapa-AFP,AP