Official: Ivory Coast rebels take 2 more towns
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, The Associated Press Updated 10:16 AM Tuesday, March 29, 2011
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Rebels fighting to install the internationally recognized president of Ivory Coast seized two more towns and advanced into the center of the country where they now control a crossroads leading to the capital and to a major seaport, an official said Tuesday.
Ivory Coast's four-month-long political crisis caused by incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to leave office is quickly degenerating into a full-scale war in the world's main cocoa-producing country whose largest city, Abidjan, was once known as the Paris of Africa but is now a ravaged and fearful city.
The United Nations said Tuesday that fighting was still raging in the two towns — Daloa in the central region and Bondoukou in the east — and that some 20,000 people had sought refuge at a Catholic mission in a third city, Duekoue, that rebels seized Monday morning.
"Terrified displaced persons have been streaming in, some with gunshot wounds as they cannot receive emergency treatment from the local hospital," said Jacques Seurt, the U.N. refugee agency's emergency coordinator in Ivory Coast, describing conditions in Duekoue.
The U.N. also said that rebels fired on one of its reconaissance helicopters Monday afternoon. The shots failed to hit the helicopter, though the U.N. denounced the attack, saying that firing on U.N. vehicles is a war crime.
Capt. Leon Alla, defense spokesman for internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara, said the central city of Daloa fell at 1 a.m. Tuesday. Several hours earlier the town of Boundoukou in the country's east fell, he said.
The location of the two latest cities indicates that the rebel offensive is now widespread. In previous weeks, it was contained to the west of the country, as well as to the northern section of Abidjan.
Highways from Daloa lead south to the port of San Pedro and east to the administrative capital of Yamassoukro. Advisers to Ouattara say that if the fighters take either San Pedro or Yamassoukro, Gbagbo will likely buckle and accept an offer of exile.
Access to the San Pedro port is considered to be especially important since it can be used to resupply the rebels who do not currently have access to the sea. The Abidjan port is still controlled by Gbagbo.
Ouattara was declared the winner of the country's Nov. 28 election, but has been unable to assume office because Gbagbo is refusing to leave office after a decade in power.
In the country's largest city of Abidjan, located around 240 miles (400 kilometers) from Daloa, the political standoff has led to daily fighting where security forces loyal to Gbagbo have used heavy weapons against the population, acts the U.N. said could be crimes against humanity. The city's chic downtown neighborhoods are now a puzzle of roadblocks manned by hooded youths allied with Gbagbo.
Suspected supporters of Ouattara are being pulled out of their cars and burned alive or beaten to death with bricks and iron bars.
The majority of the U.N. count of 462 confirmed killings were carried out by Gbagbo's security forces against Muslims and northerners perceived as being supporters of Ouattara, Human Rights Watch said in a report released earlier this month.
More than 1 million people have fled the fighting, the U.N.'s refugee agency said last week, the majority leaving Abidjan where many believe a bloody final battle for the presidency will take place.
A former International Monetary Fund economist, Ouattara has long tried to distance himself from the rebels based in the country's north who have pledged their support and who fought in a brief civil war almost a decade ago in Ivory Coast, also known by its French name of Cote d'Ivoire.
When it became clear that Gbagbo would not step down peacefully, Ouattara tacitly accepted the rebel support. The fighters have renamed themselves the Republican Forces of Cote d'Ivoire in an effort to make clear that they are supporting the country's legally elected president.
Accepting their help is a strategic gamble for Ouattara, however. Human Rights Watch documented abuses by the rebels during the civil war and Ouattara, who has been recognized by governments around the world as the country's legal president, risks squandering the international support he has garnered if the fighters commit abuses in his name.
For example in the northern section of Abidjan, rebels allied with Ouattara are accused of carrying out revenge killings in a predominantly Ebrie village, an ethnic group that voted in large numbers for Gbagbo.
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Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal.
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March 29, 2011 02:06 PM EDT
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