Opposition leaders in Ivory Coast, citing diplomats, said today 120 people had been killed in two days of violence as security forces cracked down on protests against President Laurent Gbagbo.
"According to diplomatic sources the number of dead comes to 120, with hundreds of injured," Mr Cisse Bacongo, a member of the opposition RDR party, told a news conference.
Ivory Coast's army spokesman Mr N'Goran Aka said the figures were untrue. "Yesterday it was 30. Today it's 120. It's disinformation. It's totally false."
A diplomat at one Western embassy told Reuters that according to their information, 128 people had been shot dead, although he said that figure remained to be confirmed.
Despite a ban, opponents of Gbagbo attempted to march on Thursday to call for the full implementation of a peace deal signed last year to end civil war. Vicious clashes broke out between the security forces and would-be marchers.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the number of injured people it had taken to hospital in Abidjan had risen to 116 from 45 a day earlier.