Côte d’Ivoire is calm but hate broadcasts still target peacekeeping forces, UN says

Protesters left the streets outside United Nations and other international agency offices and calm was restored across Côte d’Ivoire after leaders inside and outside the West African country appealed for an end to four days of violence, which left western provincial UN offices looted and sometimes destroyed.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Côte d’Ivoire, Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, said that in the western town of Guiglo, the offices of several UN agencies, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), along with the offices of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), were “totally or partially destroyed, pillaged, or burned.”

Most of the vehicles used for transport and humanitarian assistance were stolen and destroyed and the food and supplies that were to have been distributed to needy local people were also looted, he said in a statement.

He noted that the suffering of the local people could only be heightened by this destruction, which he said cost about a billion local francs.

The unrest stemmed from the UN-authorized International Working Group’s recommendation that the National Assembly, whose mandate had expired, be effectively dissolved. The 15-member IWG drew up and recommended a road map to free and fair elections following a failed coup in 2002, a subsequent civil war and a post-conflict standoff that appeared to have ended last month when a multi-party cabinet, including the armed and unarmed opposition, took over.

The UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) expressed concern that although the streets were calm, state radio and television broadcasters were still under the control of the demonstrators and were continuing to send out messages attacking UN and French peacekeeping forces.

On the humanitarian front, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said most agency work, including feeding more than 1 million people, had continued during the unrest, except in Guiglo.