Abidjan

The number of people poisoned by highly toxic waste that was dumped on open-air sites in Abidjan by a foreign ship has risen from 1 500 to more than 5 000 people, the country’s health ministry said on Saturday, drastically increasing the toll of those affected.

Political rivals in Côte d’Ivoire will meet in the country’s administrative capital, Yamoussoukro, on Monday to try to settle their differences against a background of growing United Nations impatience. Monday’s meeting is aimed at ”assessing the peace process and smoothing out differences”.

Trainee police officers shot dead as many as three university students in Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday in a row that began after one of the trainees jumped the queue at a bus stop, student witnesses said. Serges Koffi, leader of Ivorian student union Fesci, said some students had beaten up the trainee officer after he refused to wait in line for a bus on Monday.

The United Nations on Wednesday expressed concern at recent remarks by politicians in Côte d’Ivoire threatening to boycott the ongoing fragile peace process, and appealed to all parties to stay the course. ”The UN is launching solemn appeal to all players in the crisis to maintain their engagement,” the UN said.

Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has said he wants to hold long-delayed elections by the end of the year but insisted he will stay in office in the war-divided nation until they take place. His statement late on Sunday on the eve of Independence Day appeared to throw down the gauntlet to the United Nations which must decide next month whether to further extend Gbagbo’s mandate.

There seems to be a move between warring factions in Côte d’Ivoire to carry out a peace plan that is backed by the United Nations, South African Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota said on Saturday. The parties also hope to hold elections in October, Lekota said after returning from an UN International Working Group meeting.

Thirty-one people died in hospital following the explosion of a tanker truck in northern Benin, bringing the total dead to more than sixty, a local hospital official said on Friday. The accident occurred late on Wednesday, when a tanker truck transporting fuel to Mali overturned near the town of Porga, around 500km north of Benin’s commercial capital, Cotonou.

Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has vowed that he will remain in power as long as elections have not been held in the crisis-ridden and politically divided West African country. ”The Constitution on which I took [my] oath gives me a responsibility,” he declared on Sunday on a United Nations-run radio station.

Of all of Africa’s four debutants at the World Cup, Côte d’Ivoire could be the side best placed to spring a shock. The Ivorians pulled off a dramatic upset in qualifying by eliminating four-time finalists Cameroon and as a result will arrive in Germany knowing that sometimes miracles do happen.

A Paris gang leader was arrested overnight in Abidjan and has confessed to the kidnap, torture and murder of a young French Jewish man, Ivorian investigators said on Thursday, in a case that has horrified France. Youssouf Fofana (25) who styled himself as the ”brain of the barbarians”, could be extradited back to France by the end of the day, according to French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

A solution has been found to a dispute over the mandate of the Côte d’Ivoire Parliament, a row that sparked violent protests a fortnight ago in the restive West African country, South African mediators said on Tuesday. Mosiuoa Lekota was leading a delegation sent to Abidjan on Tuesday by the African Union’s special mediator to Côte d’Ivoire, South African President Thabo Mbeki.

As illnesses go, Buruli ulcer does not receive the attention given to conditions such as HIV/Aids or bird flu: the World Health Organisation has even termed it a ”neglected tropical disease”. In the conflict-torn nation of Côte d’Ivoire, however, matters are somewhat different.

A South African mission appointed by President Thabo Mbeki arrived on Tuesday in Abidjan for consultative talks with President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, officials said. The South-African delegation, led by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and the deputy minister of foreign affairs, Aziz Pahad, were to enter into talks with Gbagbo first before meeting Banny.

Supporters of Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo maintained barricades in many areas of Abidjan on Wednesday, bringing the West African country’s main city to a halt for the third straight day. In France, the growing crisis prompted the chief of army staff to call for sanctions to be imposed.

African mediators on Sunday appointed central banker Charles Konan Banny as transitional prime minister to lead the war-ravaged Côte d’Ivoire into elections next year. Banny (63) will be given broad powers specified by the United Nations Security Council, including financial and human resources, control over security and defence forces and oversight of the electoral process.

Côte d’Ivoire’s government has begun rebuilding its air force, one year after it was mostly destroyed by French forces in retaliation for an air raid that killed nine French soldiers, a United Nations report says. The report says it is unclear whether the attempt to rebuild the air force is in violation of an arms embargo.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was expected in Côte d’Ivoire on Friday on a mission to help resolve this war-divided West African nation’s latest crisis. On Monday, Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo began a United Nations-backed extended year in office that has been opposed by opposition leaders and rebels.

Laurent Gbagbo began his sixth year as president of Côte d’Ivoire on Monday in the face of fierce objections from the country’s armed and unarmed opposition, who are demanding he stand down. ”I will never allow the decapitation of the state of Côte d’Ivoire,” Gbagbo told the nation in a televised address.

Efforts to help people with HIV/Aids in Côte d’Ivoire have been hampered by three years of conflict and lack of funds, making it the hardest hit nation in West Africa, health officials have warned. Health Minister Albert Mabri Toikeusse said most foreign donors have suspended or halted funding.

Côte d’Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo has issued a new version of laws on electoral and nationality matters after causing a storm of protest in the divided country, his office announced on Friday. The laws relate to the nationality code, naturalisation of citizens and the independent electoral commission.

Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbago is to leave it up his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki to rule on the stalemate created by the failure of loyalists and rebels to get a disarmament programme under way, a presidential aide said on Tuesday.

Appiah Kabran whipped a shiny 9mm pistol from a holster at his waist and explained why a bespectacled lawmaker like himself might need it in war-divided Côte d’Ivoire. ”To kill rebels,” the cigar-smoking politician said bluntly. ”I don’t trust anything but this.”