Abid Jan: French helicopters fired missiles at Ivory Coast controversial president Laurent Gbagbo on Saturday.
According to initial information, French helicopters targeted Gbagbo’s residence in Abid Jan, the capital of Ivory Coast, but there were no immediate reports of any injured or casualty.
The strikes came hours after Gbagbo’s forces reportedly fired mortar rounds and a rocket were fired at the residence of French ambassador in Abidjan. While a spokesman for Gbagbo denied that the French ambassador’s residence had been attacked.
Toussaint Alain, a representative for Gbagbo said, “The Ivory Coast government believes France is looking for a pretext to resume bombings on the presidential palace”. “If there are attacks on the embassy, it’s not Gbagbo’s forces. Nobody has been attacked.”
The UN peacekeeping head said Mr Gbagbo’s forces had regained ground in Abidjan and fully control the Plateau and Cocody areas.
Alain Le Roy said the Gbagbo’s forces still have heavy weapons and his camp had used a lull on Tuesday for peace talks as a “trick” to strengthen their positions.
On Friday UN found more than 100 bodies in western Ivory Coast in what appeared to have been ethnically driven killings, the UN human rights office said.
“The human rights team investigating in west Cote d Ivoire found more than 100 bodies from three locations,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “All the incidents appear to have been at least partly ethnically motivated,” he added. About 40 bodies were found in Blolequin, west of Duekoue, and “perpetrators appear to be Liberian mercenaries.”
“The team also went to a nearby town of Guiglo, where they saw more than 60 bodies,” he said, adding that some of the victims included people who were non-Ivorians but from other west Africa countries. “Certainly there has been an escalation in the past two weeks,” he added.
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