Nearly 200 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since last month’s disputed election, according to the United States, as international pressure mounts for defiant leader Laurent Gbagbo to step down.
World powers and African states have thrown their support behind rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara in a violent standoff since the November 28th election that threatens to tip the West African country back into civil war.
“We have credible reports that almost 200 people may have already been killed, with dozens more tortured or mistreated, and others may have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night,” US ambassador Betty E. King told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday.
The UN later said it had substantiated allegations that at least 173 people were killed between December 16th and 21st, along with 90 people tortured and hundreds detained.
The United States, the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and West African bloc ECOWAS have all recognised provisional electoral commission results showing Ouattara as the winner of the poll.
But Mr Gbagbo has shown no sign of caving in to pressure and insists he won the election after the Constitutional Court, headed by one of his allies, threw out hundreds of thousands of votes from pro-Ouattara constituencies.
The US and EU have slapped travel sanctions on Gbagbo and his inner circle, and the World Bank on Wednesday froze funding to the country, to which it has aid commitments of more than $800 million (€612 million).
Ministers from the central bank of the West African Monetary Union were due to meet yesterday in Guinea Bissau to discuss Ivory Coast amid speculation it could also freeze Ivory Coast funding – a move that would hinder Gbagbo’s ability to pay public wages.
Ivory Coast’s state-run newspaper said yesterday that Gbagbo’s signature was, for now, still being recognised on state accounts at the central bank and that public salaries would be paid this month.
A spokesman for Ivory Coast’s army said late on Wednesday that government troops stood united behind Gbagbo despite the growing pressure.