Tag: Ivory

ABIDJAN - At least 210 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since a presidential stand-off escalated in mid-December, the United Nations mission in the crisis-hit west African nation said on Thursday.
At least 31 people have died since the last toll given by the United Nations Mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI) on December 30, the mission's human rights spokesman Simon Munzu told journalists, bringing the total to 210.
The toll includes those killed during the crisis pitting

ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo's troops kept up their blockade of his presidential rival's headquarters on Wednesday, despite a vow to lift the siege as a prelude to talks to resolve the stand-off.
African leaders struggling to mediate an end to the crisis had said on Tuesday that Gbagbo promised to allow free access to the hotel that has become home to Alassane Ouattara, the man the world says won a November election. With no visible progress in the

ABUJA - Ivory Coast's political crisis was deadlocked Tuesday, African mediators said, after the latest diplomatic mission to the country failed to get strongman Laurent Gbagbo to step down as president.
"There is still a stalemate," Nigerian president and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) head Goodluck Jonathan told reporters after talks with envoys who met Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara on Monday.
Three west African presidents and Kenyan Prime

ABIDJAN - Pressure ratcheted up on Sunday on Ivory Coast's defiant leader Laurent Gbagbo to quit even as his rival faced the threat of a mob attack on his internationally recognised government's headquarters.
Gbagbo's notorious "Street General", Minister for Youth Charles Ble Goude, had urged Ivorian youths to rise up after the New Year to seize control of Alassane Ouattara's headquarters in the waterfront Golf Hotel resort. But as the African Union mediator in the crisis, Kenyan

PARIS - France on Monday dealt another blow to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo by promising to recognise as the country's Paris ambassador the envoy sent by his rival Alassane Ouattara.
Paris is in the process of recognising the envoy named by Ouattara, seen by the international community as the winner of a disputed presidential election last month, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
Asked to confirm reports that the current ambassador named by

ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast marked a fearful Christmas on Saturday after West African leaders threatened military action to force defiant strongman Laurent Gbagbo to cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara.
The pair have been locked in a political stand-off for almost a month after both claimed to have won the November 28 presidential election, but mounting international pressure may have brought the crisis to a turning point.
Christmas was a sad milestone for Ivory Coast, where

ABIDJAN: Gunfire rang out across Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan on Thursday as forces loyal to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo countered a protest by supporters of rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara, witnesses said.
Ouattara is recognised by the United Nations, the United States, African states and France as the winner of a Nov. 28 election but Gbagbo, backed by the nation's top legal body, has held on to the presidency, alleging mass vote-rigging by pro-Ouattara rebels in

ALGIERS: The African Union does not favour sanctions for now over a disputed presidential election in Ivory Coast and will instead stick to quiet diplomacy, the Union's top security official said on Sunday.
A row over who won an election on November 28 has left Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, in a state of paralysis with the president and his rival running parallel administrations, and many people fear an outbreak of violence. Asked in an interview with Reuters if

ABIDJAN: Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki sought on Sunday to mediate an end to a dispute over Ivory Coast's presidential election that has threatened to trigger unrest in the divided West African nation. The Nov. 28 poll, designed to reunite a country split after a 2002-2003 civil war, has raised tensions as both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his challenger Alassane Ouattara have claimed victory and taken presidential oaths.
In the northern town of Bouake, the stronghold

ABIDJAN: Gunmen shot dead at least eight people in an attack on supporters of Ivory Coast presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara amid tensions over delayed vote results, witnesses told AFP on Thursday.
Violence erupted as Ouattara and President Laurent Gbagbo were locked in a stand-off over results of the hotly contested presidential vote, following pre-election violence that left at least another seven people dead. Witnesses in the western Yopougon district of Abidjan, a

ABIDJAN: Violence in western Ivory Coast during Sunday's second round of presidential elections has killed three people, the UN envoy to the divided west African country, Youn-jin Choi, said Monday.
The previous toll, given on Sunday by the government, was two dead, and the authorities blamed Dozo traditional hunters.
"We have confirmed three deaths yesterday in the west," Choi told a press conference, without giving details of "this violence, these troubles," which he said

ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast opposition leader Henri Konan Bedie has challenged the results of an election in which he came third, failing to make the second round run-off, a spokesman said on Friday.
Ivory Coast's first election in a decade left Bedie with around 25 percent of the vote, against President Laurent Gbagbo's 38 percent and challenger Alassane Ouattara's 32 percent. Gbagbo and Ouattara now head to the second round scheduled for Nov 28.
The long-delayed poll in the