UN Chief Warns of Looming Civil War in Ivory Coast

The president has ordered UN peacekeepers to leave the country and blockaded his rival inside a hotel.

The Ivory Coast’s first presidential elections since the 2002 civil war were supposed to unify the country, but instead incumbent Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to leave office. Gbagbo claims he won the election with 51.5 per cent of the vote, but most of the international community recognizes Alassane Ouattara as the victor. Ouattara remains blockaded inside the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, guarded by 800 UN troops. Gbagbo has now cut off supplies to the peacekeepers and said if the 10,000 UN soldiers in the Ivory Coast don’t leave they will be treated as rebels. Tuesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that mercenaries hired by the government were breaking an arms embargo with the intention of targeting certain population groups.