MARK COLVIN: While the world focuses on Libya, dangerous developments in other parts of the world risk going unnoticed. The United Nations is warning about the way things are going in Ivory Coast. Security forces there have shot dead seven women who were protesting against the president Laurent Gbagbo.
International election monitors agreed that Gbagbo lost the presidential elections in November but ever since he's been refusing to step down. The UN says at least 365 people have died in the power struggle between him and the apparent winner of the election, Alassane Ouattara.
In the latest killing, an attack on an all-women demonstration, witnesses say that as well as the seven dead, many more were wounded.
Barney Porter has the story.
BARNEY PORTER: Witnesses say the latest incident took place as women gathered at a roundabout in Abobo for a planned march to call on Gbagbo to step down.
WITNESS (translated): Our mothers went out to march peacefully, then we saw Gbagbo's tanks. They came and opened fire on the old women, killing at least six on the spot.
WITNESS 2 (translated): I was cooking outside and there was shooting several times and I could see the rockets passing over me. I decided to move my children and hide them in the house. I did not want anything bad happening to them.
BARNEY PORTER: Last November's poll was meant to reunify a country that's been divided since a civil war in 2002 but with Gbagbo's refusal to concede defeat, it's instead triggered a crisis. He's retained the loyalty of much of the security forces.
Ouattara, meanwhile, has the support of the international community but remains blockaded in an Abidjan hotel, protected by UN troops. Both men have set up their own governments, but neither are functioning properly and the economy is paralysed.
Thousands meanwhile have fled the fighting. Some have crossed into neighbouring Liberia. Others have looked for sanctuary within their own country. Mohamn Syella is a local priest. He says the escalating violence is creating state of fear among the residents.
MOHAMN SYELLA (translated): It has been terrible, gunfire during the night and also during the day. It's affected a lot of families. Some choose to move back to the villages very early in the morning.
BARNEY PORTER: Jacques Franquin is with the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR. He says the situation has been deteriorating steadily since early December.
JACQUES FRANQUIN: We imagine the number at between 200 and 300,000 people that are displaced now in Abidjan only plus the situation in the west where we considered politically the war has started and bringing to a lot, a lot of people on the move, we're estimating the number as more than 100,000 right now.
BARNEY PORTER: The UN Security Council has been discussing the situation in Ivory Coast. Li Baodong is the current president of the Security Council.
LI BAODONG: The members of the Security Council remain deeply concerned about recent escalation of violence in Cote d'Ivoire, especially Abidjan following reported attacks on civilians, including women.
BARNEY PORTER: But that's not good enough for Youssoufou Bamba, an Ouattara loyalist and the Ivory Coast's Ambassador to the UN. He's asking for more international intervention and a stronger mandate for the UN peacekeepers already stationed in the country.
YOUSSOUFOU BAMBA: You recall two months ago I've warned about genocide. Today I will reiterate it the genocide in the making. They are killing people along ethnic lines. They are killing foreign, nationals from foreign countries, from neighbouring countries. They are killing people who are opposed to Mr Gbagbo. That not acceptable.
BARNEY PORTER: And that's also the view of this resident of Abidjan who's also an opponent of Laurent Gbagbo.
RESIDENT OF ABIDJAN: I really think that the international community should help us more than what they are doing. I mean, more than sanctions and words. If it's possibly to have military support to have Gbagbo, I think it is the solution because people are dying, no more banks, small business is closing. It's very difficult, it's very difficult.
source: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3155672.htm
