The InterDependent

Nzérékoré, GUINEA -- Political violence in the Ivory Coast has forced nearly 4,000 Ivorians to flee their homes in the west of the country, according to the UN Office of High Commissioner for Refugees.

About 3,500 Ivorians have sought refuge in neighboring Liberia, and some 200 in Guinea, said Astrid Castelein, the UN’s representative here in southeast Guinea.

Fighting has broken out between government troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who is the most recent president of the country, and the opposition leader, Alassane Ouattara, who was elected the new president in November in a contest legitimized by the UN but dismissed by Gbagbo and those loyal to him in the military.

On Thursday, the death toll from violence in the financial capital, Abidjan, and elsewhere was said to have reached as high as 30, according to media reports and human-rights groups.

Provisional results from the Nov. 28 presidential runoff election between Ouattara and Gbagbo had placed Outtara ahead with 54 percent of the vote. But the country’s highest court, headed by a Gbagbo ally, overturned the decision in Gbagbo’s favor, citing voter intimidation in pro-Ouattara strongholds in the north.

On Wednesday, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, released a statement saying that he was strongly concerned by continuing violence in Ivory Coast.

In an additional statement, released Thursday, the Security Council warned “all stakeholders that they will be held accountable for attacks against civilians and will be brought to justice, in accordance with international law and international humanitarian law.”

Gbagbo has dismissed calls from the African Union, the European Union, France, the US and others demanding his immediate resignation, as he warned other countries not to meddle in the “sovereign” affairs of the Ivory Coast.

Joe Penney

Guinea, which is west of Ivory Coast, is taking in hundreds of refugees who are leaving because of violence in their country. Thousands more have taken harbor in Liberia. Here, an Ivoirian soldier of the rebel group Forces Nouvelle at the border with Guinea.

Ouattara has created a parallel government and has been running affairs from his makeshift headquarters in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, which is guarded by UN peacekeepers and soldiers from the rebel group the Forces Nouvelles, who have controlled the north of the country since 2002.

In the western Danané region, supporters of Gbagbo have fled their homes because of threats they received from the Forces Nouvelles.

“The chiefs of the villages had told everyone to vote Gbagbo," said Mayoh Bohmimy, a Guinean Red Cross worker at a makeshift refugee camp in the village of Bossou in southeast Guinea. “Gbagbo didn’t win, Alassane Ouattara won. Ouattara’s supporters rose up and told everyone since you weren’t with us during the election, we will hurt you.”

Castelein, the UN refugee representative in Guinea, said that the agency in the region was taking emergency measures to cope with a potentially large influx of refugees in the next few days; most of those fleeing are women and children.

The refugees in Liberia are being relocated to local villages because of the country's a policy disallowing refugee camps. The exiles in Guinea are staying at a local primary school.