VOA News
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, is a scene of increasing disorder as fighters opposed to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo close in.
Multiple sources say French peacekeepers were deployed to areas where looting broke out Thursday.
Earlier, forces backing Mr. Gbagbo's presidential rival, Alassane Ouattara, attacked a prison and released all of the inmates.
South Africa says Mr. Gbagbo's army chief of staff and his family have sought refuge at the Abidjan home of the South African ambassador.
Pro-Ouattara fighters have seized control of about a dozen key cities and towns in Ivory Coast since Monday.
Mr. Ouattara released a statement saying forces backing him are at the gates of Abidjan. He called on Gbagbo loyalists to switch sides, and his aides predicted that Mr. Gbagbo could fall from power within hours.
Mr. Gbagbo has resisted international pressure to give up power since Mr. Ouattara was declared the winner of last November's presidential election.
On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council approved sanctions against Mr. Gbagbo, including a travel ban and asset freeze on him, his wife and three key aides.
The resolution urged the nearly 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Ivory Coast to use “all necessary means” to protect civilians under “imminent threat of violence,” including to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population.
The United Nations said Thursday that at least 494 people have been killed since the political crisis began in early December. It says up to 1 million people have been displaced, with thousands fleeing west to Liberia or east to Ghana.
Mr. Ouattara has spent most of the last four months in an Abidjan hotel, protected by U.N. peacekeepers but surrounded by pro-Gbagbo security forces.
November's disputed election was meant to reunite Ivory Coast, nearly a decade after a brief civil war left it split into a rebel-controlled north and a government-controlled south.
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