ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Mobs loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, the president who refuses to give up power after losing an election, burned and stoned five United Nations vehicles on Thursday, including an ambulance, a United Nations spokesman said.
The attacks appeared to represent an escalation of Mr. Gbagbo’s campaign against the presence of nearly 10,000 United Nations troops here, assigned among other duties to protect the government of the man who defeated the incumbent in last November’s presidential election, Alassane Ouattara.
Mr. Gbagbo has demanded that the United Nations troops leave the country, the patrols have been fired on by men in uniform, and the state television station nightly broadcasts vitriolic attacks, asserting that the foreign troops are in league with rebel forces that control the northern half of the country.
The latest attacks occurred at improvised checkpoints manned by local youths who support Mr. Gbagbo, but the United Nations spokesman here said that some in the mob included men wearing the uniforms of government security forces. Two of the vehicles were burned, and three others were damaged, said the spokesman, Kenneth Blackman.
The crowd stoned the ambulance, injuring the head of the patient inside, he said.
Late Tuesday, a United Nations patrol was shot at in the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan from both sides of the road — “ambushed,” Mr. Blackman said — during a Gbagbo security forces assault on the pro-Ouattara neighborhood. Some police officers were also killed in the assault.
“The attack on the ambulance is a bit shocking,” Mr. Blackman said. “Even where there is a war, no one targets ambulances. It goes against the principles of basic decency.”
In New York, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, strongly condemned the latest attacks, saying they were “crimes under international law.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights chief here reported “phenomena which elsewhere resulted in genocide,” according to the mission’s account of its weekly news conference in Abidjan. Among the “warning signs,” the United Nations said, were “signs that weapons are being distributed to civilians.”
In Geneva, Reuters reported that the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, expressed concern about the possible discovery of a new mass grave in Ivory Coast. Two others have already been reported; as at previously reported sites, government troops have blocked access by United Nations investigators.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/africa/14ivory.html
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