Nearly 200 killed in Ivory Coast violence

Nearly 200 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since last month's disputed election, according to the United States, as international pressure mounts for defiant leader Laurent Gbagbo to step down. World powers and African states have thrown their support behind rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara in a violent stand-off since the November 28 election that threatens to tip the West African country back into civil war.
"We have credible reports that almost 200 people may have already been killed, with dozens more tortured or mistreated, and others may have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night," US ambassador Betty E. King told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday.
The UN later said it had substantiated allegations that at least 173 people were killed between December 16 and 21, along with 90 people tortured and hundreds detained. The United States, the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and West African bloc ECOWAS have all recognised provisional electoral commission results showing Ouattara as the winner of the poll.
But Gbagbo has shown no sign of caving to the pressure and insists he won the election after the Constitutional Court headed by one of his allies threw out hundreds of thousands of votes from pro-Ouattara constituencies. The United States and the European Union have slapped travel sanctions on Gbagbo and his inner circle, and the World Bank on Wednesday froze funding to the country, to which it has aid commitments of over $800 million. The election in the former regional star economy was meant to reunite the country following a 2002-03 civil war, but has instead aggravated divisions.
A spokesman for Ivory Coast's army said late on Wednesday that government troops stood united behind Gbagbo despite the growing pressure. "There is no doubt about the cohesion as perfect brothers in arms of the security and defence forces," army spokesman Babri Gohourou said in an address on state TV.