Ivory Coast, February 20: Security forces loyal to incumbent Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo have killed three supporters of Alassane Ouattara, who is recognized by the world as the president-elect.
Police fired bullets and used tear gas on Saturday in Abidjan’s Abobo neighborhood to disrupt a gathering of several hundred protesters backing Ouattara, AFP reported.
“Three youths were shot dead in front of the town hall, and several others wounded,” a witness said.
The United Nations says some 300 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since a standoff over the most recent presidential election escalated in the West African country in mid-December.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that Ivory Coast could descend into civil war as tensions simmer over the disputed outcome of the run-off presidential election of November 28.
Nearly 25,000 Ivorians have fled to neighboring Liberia as a result of the post-election instability in the former French colony.
Last December, Ivory Coast’s electoral commission announced that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara had won the nation’s long-awaited presidential election with 54 percent of the vote.
However, the Constitutional Council immediately contested the result, citing the electoral commission’s failure to declare the results by the official deadline.
The council overruled earlier provisional poll results a day later and declared Gbagbo the winner of the presidential election.
However, Gbagbo has ignored calls from countries across the African continent and elsewhere around the globe to admit defeat and step down.
——–Agencies