Region blamed for Ivorian horror

Gbagbo has been blamed by rebels for the failure of peace efforts

President Laurent Gbagbo has called on the United Nations to impose sanctions on neighbouring countries involved in Ivory Coast's two year conflict.

Mr Gbagbo said a leaked UN report detailing widespread abuses showed the country was a victim of deserting soldiers backed by neighbours.

The report blames government forces and rebels and speaks of mass executions, torture, rape and death squads.

The country has been divided since 2002 with rebels in control of the north.

Mr Gbagbo called for the UN to name the countries involved but says abuses committed by his forces should not be compared with those committed by the rebels.

Victim

"The report clearly shows that Ivory Coast was victimised by a coup attempt, by aggression and by attacks against its territorial integrity by deserting soldiers - with the help and backing of its neighbours," Mr Gbagbo said in a statement.

According to the French newspaper, Liberation, the unpublished report includes a secret list of 200 people who could face prosecution or UN sanctions.

The newspaper said the 100-page report lays out "the nightmare of Ivory Coast in all its horror".

Since a failed a coup against President Gbagbo in 2002, the west African country has been wracked by civil conflict and has been left in a state of division.

French UN peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone between rebel forces in the north and government-held areas in the south.

The international forces are criticised for failing to act to prevent killings in the country, despite having a mandate to do so.

'Cold execution'

Liberation says the UN report documents a catalogue of human rights abuses and violence over more than two years of civil war.

The newspaper says that French and UN peacekeepers filmed many of the abuses, and evidence could later be used in war crimes prosecutions.

Neighbouring states, including Mali and Burkina Faso, are also implicated in the violence, accused of offering training bases and equipment to the rebels.

Other near neighbours Guinea and Angola are listed as offering support to government forces, Liberation says.

The report lists a catalogue of killings and abuses, including:

• The "cold execution" by rebels of 131 civilians in September 2002 after government forces failed to retake the central Ivorian town of Bouake

• One hundred and twenty immigrant workers killed at cocoa and coffee plantations in December 2002 by government troops

• Torture including a woman forced to drink blood and urine and a man forced to have sex with his mother

• Women of all ages were raped, as were children, the report asserts.

Children have been raped and murdered in Ivory Coast's conflict

"On both sides of the conflict women were used to assuage the bestial appetites of the combatants, some of whom were under the influence of drugs," Liberation quoted the UN report as saying.

Hugh Schofield in Paris says the report offers an unsparing and unsettling view of the conflict in Ivory Coast.

Torture is rampant and the detail in the report obscene, he adds.

In their conclusion, the report's five authors said they hoped they could help "progressively to end the impunity and generalised irresponsibility that characterise Ivory Coast".