France24 - African leaders head to Ivory Coast to mediate crisis

AFP - A panel of five African presidents will meet briefly in Mauritania before heading to Ivory Coast on Friday to mediate a political crisis which the United Nations warns may spiral into civil war.

"The five (presidents) will meet for two hours in Nouakchott before taking their flight to Abidjan," a Mauritanian diplomatic source told AFP.

The UN refugee agency meanwhile warned in Geneva that it was suspending some activities in western Ivory Coast because of clashes and that its work was becoming increasingly difficult in Abidjan.

Exclusive FRANCE 24 interview

On Thursday, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told the UN Security Council how forces loyal to Gbagbo opened fire earlier in the day with heavy machine guns on a demonstration by women in the northern Abobo neighbourhood of Abidjan, a Ouattara stronghold.

The US State Department said the killing of at least six women highlighted Gbagbo's "moral bankruptcy" and the 15-nation Security Council said they "condemn the threats, obstructions and acts of wanton violence perpetrated" by Gbagbo's forces against civilians and also UN troops, who have also come under fire.

The visiting panel is headed by Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and includes Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete, South African President Jacob Zuma, Idriss Deby Itno of Chad and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso.

The heads of state first met on February 20 to examine proposals to end a deadlock in the Ivory Coast where strongman Laurent Gbagbo, in power since 2000, has been clinging to office after losing in November elections.

Security forces loyal to Gbagbo have several times opened fire on demonstrators backing the man internationally held to have defeated him at the polls, Alassane Ouattara, and clashes have broken out in western Ivory Coast.

The African panel went to Abidjan last month to present the rivals with their proposals, with the exception of Compaore, who is accused by Gbagbo's camp of backing Ouattara.

The African Union in January tasked the presidents with coming up with a binding solution to the crisis, accepted by both camps, by the end of February. However, the deadline was pushed back by one month.

The Security Council on Thursday urged the UN mission in Ivory Coast, ONUCI, which includes 11,000 troops, "to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate, in particular to protect the civilians."

However, on Friday the UN High Commissioner for Refugees announced that it has been forced by violence to halt plans to build a camp for displaced people in western Ivory Coast and to suspend its activities there.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that some 70,000 people have been displaced in the west, where there have been heavy clashes around the towns of Duekoue and Blolequin.

"And we're not operating there anymore unfortunately due to the fighting and the insecurity," Fleming told journalists in Geneva.

Beyond the west, access of aid agencies to the needy was also being choked off in Abidjan, where the number of displaced people has now reached 200,000, the agency said.

"We do still have our staff in Abidjan, but we see roadblocks outside our office. It is now very difficult for us to move around and reach the people in need, we're having to rely more and more on local NGOs," said Fleming.

France meanwhile on Friday called for the United Nations Human Rights Council to set up a "credible and impartial" international probe.

"France would like the Human Rights Council to take up the situation in the Ivory Coast as quickly as possible," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
 

via france24.com