At least 296 killed in Ivory Coast unrest

At least 296 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since a presidential stand-off escalated in mid-December, the United Nations mission in the crisis-hit west African nation said on Thursday. At least 22 people have died in the past week, the spokesman for the UN Mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI), Hamadoun Toure, told journalists. The latest deaths mainly occurred in Abidjan, where supporters of Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised as the winner of November 28 elections, clashed this week with police controlled by incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to step down. Others died in ethnic clashes in the western town of Duekoue, around 500 kilometres (300 miles) west of the commercial capital Abidjan, where more than 38,000 people have been displaced. Ouattara remains besieged in his camp's temporary headquarters at a hotel resort in Abidjan despite intensive mediation efforts aimed at ending the deadly stand-off.