JOIN US Human Rights Watch called on Alassane Ouattara to investigate and prosecute abuses by his forces and those supporting his rival, strongman Laurent Gbagbo.
The group said forces loyal to Gbagbo killed more than 100 civilians to retaliate against pro-Ouattara fighters who launched a major offensive advancing toward Abidjan.
Gbagbo is holed up in a bunker in his residence in Abidjan. After a decade in power, he still refuses to step aside even though the United Nations has ruled that he lost the November presidential election to Ouattara.
After four months of diplomacy, Ouattara gave the go-ahead for a military intervention led by fighters from a former rebel group. They swept across the country, advancing hundreds of miles and taking dozens of cities in a matter of days before being held up at the door of Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest and most strategically important city.
The UN on Sunday said the Golf Hotel in Abidjan where Ouattara is based came under attack late Saturday and one peacekeeper was injured.
UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure said rockets and mortars landed on the hotel grounds shortly after UN forces came under attack nearby on Saturday evening. One peacekeeper was evacuated to hospital with serious injuries, he said.
Massere Toure, a communications adviser for Ouattara, denied that the hotel itself was targeted by the attack, which she said started when a patrol sent out from the hotel was ambushed by forces loyal to former president Gbagbo.
Toure confirmed that stray bullets and at least one mortar landed on hotel grounds during the fighting.
Gbagbo’s forces broke out of the presidential compound Saturday and advanced into position in the downtown core and near the Golf Hotel.
But the human rights group warned there is more going on outside Abidjan. “While the international community has been focused on the political stalemate in Abidjan over the presidency, forces on both sides have committed numerous atrocities against civilians, their leaders showing little interest in reining them in,” said Daniel Bekele, Human Rights Watch Africa director.