Third mass grave found in Ivory Coast, says UN

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

A third mass grave has been discovered in Ivory Coast, according to the UN, following weeks of politically motivated killings that have raised fears of a new civil war.

After two days of deadly clashes it was also claimed that a UN vehicle had been set ablaze and its driver dragged out and beaten.

Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told Reuters that her officials had been denied access to three mass graves including a site alleged to contain 80 bodies.

"I am very concerned now that a third mass grave has been discovered," Pillay said in Geneva. "Not only my representative there but the UN representative has not been allowed access to the mass graves."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/13/ivory-coast-third-mass-grave-un

[Kurovski]

1. K&R. (nt)

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, alp.

[MinneapolisMatt]

3. K&R.

:(

[uppityperson]

4. k&r

[pampango]

5. Ivory Coast: Mobs, security forces attack UN cars

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ivory-coast-forces-block-un-access-to-mass-graves-2172534.html

Gbagbo has refused to accept the outcome of the November poll and has ordered the U.N.'s 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission to leave. The U.N. has refused, and its troops have increasingly come under attack, including earlier this week when gunmen wounded three peacekeepers after their car crashed, said spokesman Kenneth Blackman.

On the other side are communities that are being systematically punished for having voted for opposition leader Ouattara, who was recognized as the winner of the recent vote, first by the country's election commission, then by a special U.N. team called on to certify the results.

"Our approach has been to not be alarmist, or sensationalist ... and we cannot say that Ivory Coast is on the verge of a genocide," said Simon Munzu, the human rights chief of the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast. "But we need to be vigilant, because we are seeing the same phenomena that elsewhere resulted in a genocide."

Though many fear war could erupt anew in Ivory Coast, an organized mass genocide on the scale Rwanda in 1994 — when ethnic Hutus slaughtered at least half a million people, mostly Tutsis, in 100 days — is unlikely. Ivory Coast is home to a complex patchwork of around 60 ethnic groups. "In Rwanda, do not forget, the armed forces worked in connivance with (civilian) militias," said Munzu. "It should not be that the while we are here in (Ivory Coast) that a genocide is being prepared under our eyes. ... We need to be allowed to work, to be given back our freedom of movement."