UN peacekeepers in Ivory Coast will be reinforced by 2,000 soldiers and have received two combat helicopters to face worsening violence between rival political factions, a UN official said.
The 8,000-strong UN force is trying to keep a stand-off between the two presidential claimants, incumbent Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo and his rival, Alassane Ouattara, from tipping into a civil war, as clashes between factions loyal to each side grow increasingly violent.
Gbagbo’s defense minister Alain Dogou repeated calls at a press conference for all UN troops to leave and said it would not cooperate with them, accusing them of arming rebels.
“They have become a party in Ivory Coast’s conflict,” he said.
About 800 peacekeepers are stationed around a hotel in Abidjan where Ouattara, widely recognized as the winner of an election last year, has been holed up for three months hoping that economic sanctions would weaken Gbagbo’s grip on power.
“What we are seeing is clearly an escalation of violence,” Choi Young-jin, a UN representative in Abidjan, told the Liberation newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. “Since Feb. 19, incidents have gotten more serious.”
On Thursday, Ivorian security forces loyal to Gbagbo shot dead seven women protesters and the UN said at least 365 people had been killed in violence in the wake of a disputed general election on Nov. 28 last year.
Video footage of the all-women protest in the northern Abidjan suburb of Abobo, broadcast on i>TELE news channel, shows women screaming after gunshots are heard and at least two bloodied bodies on the road. An armored vehicle marked “police” is visible driving toward them in the background.
Choi said he was sending frequent patrols through the Abobo suburb.
“We need to do everything we can to stop someone who wants to massacre civilians from making it happen,” he said.
As the conflict grows more entrenched, Choi said he had not yet called on a French military unit stationed nearby.
However, he did need to beef up his force.
“We are waiting on reinforcements of 2,000 blue helmets and two of the three armed helicopters that we ordered have arrived,” he said.
Staying in control of the skies above Abidjan through air power was crucial to ensuring that the fragile situation did not degenerate into bloodshed, he added.
When asked if he thought a political outcome to the crisis was possible, Choi was pessimistic.
“Since the beginning we’ve noted deep differences between the two parties. It will be very difficult to find common ground between the rivals,” the UN envoy said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing