Côte d’Ivoire strongman Laurent Gbagbo will skip African Union-hosted talks with his rival for the presidency, his party said on Tuesday, in a new snub to efforts to end an increasingly bloody dispute.
Hundreds of women in Abidjan meanwhile demonstrated against Gbagbo after seven women were shot dead at a similar a rally last week, with gunfire erupting after the protest and a police bus torched, witnesses said.
Pro-Ouattara women demonstrators shot in Abidjan
Warning: Graphic Content
Shooting occurs: 3:30mins into video
Three men and a woman were shot dead in clashes following the peaceful women’s march in support of Côte d’Ivoire’s presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara, a medical official said.
The four bodies were taken to a nearby clinic in Abidjan’s Treichville district.
“They were hit by bullets,” said a medical official, who declined to be named. “Two arrived dead and two died at the clinic from their wounds.”
The young woman was standing outside a family court when she was hit in the chest, a member of her family said. Nothing was immediately known about how the men died.
Several other people were wounded in the violence and treated by the clinic.
‘Deterioration of domestic security’
Gbagbo would not attend Thursday’s talks with Ouattara in Addis Ababa as he wants to stay in the Côte d’Ivoire “because of the deterioration of the domestic security situation”, his Ivorian Popular Front party said.
He has refused to hand power to Ouattara, who is internationally recognised as the winner of the presidential elections in November 2010, despite mediation, sanctions and the threat of intervention.
Instead, party leader Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Gbagbo foreign minister Alcide Djedje had left for the Ethiopian capital to attend the meeting at the African Union headquarters, party spokesperson Eric Ane told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The African Union invited the rivals to talks in its latest bid to end a dispute that has deteriorated into the worst conflict since clashes in 2004, with 370 people killed since mid-December, according to United Nations (UN) figures.
Tens of thousands have also fled, with 75 000 entering Liberia and 200 000 to 300 000 leaving their homes in the main city Abidjan, the UN refugee agency said on Thursday.
Ouattara, holed up in Abidjan’s Golf Hotel under a blockade by forces loyal to Gbagbo, has accepted the invitation to Thursday’s meeting, which will include five African presidents tasked with resolving the crisis.
He is protected by troops of a UN mission and the New Forces armed group, which controls the northern half of the country.
‘Gbagbo out’
Also invited to the Ethiopian capital was Paul Yao N’Dré, the head of the Constitutional Council that rejected the election authority’s ruling that Gbagbo had lost the vote, backing his claims to still be in power.
However Yao N’Dré was not seen at the airport with the two men headed to Ethiopia. It was not immediately possible to confirm if he was making the trip.
Fighting has intensified in recent days in Abidjan and the west of the country, where New Forces fighters allied with Ouattara wrested a town from Gbagbo’s control at the weekend.
Hundreds of women marched in Abidjan again on Tuesday, International Women’s Day, to condemn last week’s killings blamed on troops loyal to Gbagbo.
“We are not going to stop demonstrating until Laurent Gbagbo leaves,” one told AFP.
Demonstrators carried placards that read “Gbagbo out”, “Gbagbo assassin, leave power” and “Yes to ADO”, a name for Ouattara.
Sustained gunfire was heard following a march in the Treichville district, after which young people confronted police and burned a police bus.
Shooting
Police reinforcements arrived in buses, shops shut and traffic was halted. A thick column of black smoke, of unknown origin, could be seen.
“We were in the church [for a memorial mass for the seven dead women] when we heard the shooting,” a march organiser who did not want to be named told AFP.
“We shut the church doors, we did not know what was happening outside. When things calmed down, I asked the women to go home.”
Côte d’Ivoire has been divided between north and south since a foiled coup bid against Gbagbo in September 2002, after which the rebel New Forces took control of half the country.
November’s election, postponed several times since 2005, was meant to restore stability and peace in the world’s leading cocoa producer.
Gbagbo on Monday ordered his government to take control of the country’s key cocoa sector, so far dominated by multinational companies. He also controls the security forces.
The Côte d’Ivoire accounts for 40% of the world supply of cocoa.— AFP