Comes as a surprise, huh? I know. It floored me, too.
Days of intense festivities have taken place in Abobo between police loyal to sitting president
Laurent Gbagbo... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints...
and rebel soldiers allied with his opponent, Alassane Ouattara.
Local UN human rights
... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you...
representative Guillaume Ngefa said Thursday that at least 26 people have been killed in Abobo in the last 24 hours alone.
The UN's refugee agency also has expressed alarm about the dire conditions facing people trying to get out of the area, citing "reports of many dead bodies, buses burned and shops looted, and of young forces of Evil attacking people inside their homes." The standoff between the two men claiming to be president reached a new level last week when the army began using war-like weapons, including mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
Gbagbo, the sitting president, has refused to cede power three months after the UN said Ouattara won the election.
The standoff already has claimed the lives of hundreds of Ouattara supporters, victims of targeted liquidations and "disappearances" carried out at night by security forces loyal to Gbagbo.
Multiple delegations of African leaders have come through Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial hub, in an attempt to persuade Gbagbo to leave office. Gbagbo has rejected all their proposals, including offers of amnesty and a comfortable exile abroad.