UNHCR halts Ivory Coast ops, presidents head back

The UN refugees agency has been forced to halt plans to build a camp for the displaced in west Ivory Coast, and suspend all activities in the region due to security fears, a spokeswoman said Friday.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for UNHCR pointed out that some 70,000 have been displaced in the western part of the country and that the agency was planning to build a camp for them.

"But we had to cease all of that construction," she said.

"And we're not operating there anymore unfortunately due to the fighting and the insecurity," she told journalists.

"And we're not operating there anymore unfortunately due to the fighting and the insecurity," she told journalists, noting that heavy clashes have taken place around the west's Duekoue and Blolequin.

Beyond the west, access of aid agencies to the needy was also being choked off in Abidjan, where the number of displaced people has now reached 200,000, the agency said.

"We do still have our staff in Abidjan, but we see roadblocks outside our office. It is now very difficult for us to move around and reach the people in need, we're having to rely more and more on local NGOs," said Fleming.

The UN Security Council warned Thursday that the Ivory Coast conflict was spiralling towards civil war.

The country has been in conflict since a presidential election last November as strongman Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of the polls, have been unable to find a settlement to end the crisis.

Meanwhile, a panel of five African presidents will meet briefly in Mauritania before heading to Ivory Coast on Friday to mediate a political crisis which the United Nations warns may spiral into civil war.

"The five (presidents) will meet for two hours in Nouakchott before taking their flight to Abidjan," a Mauritanian diplomatic source told AFP.

The panel is headed by Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and includes Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete, South African President Jacob Zuma, Idriss Deby Itno of Chad and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso.

The heads of state first met on February 20 to examine proposals to end a deadlock in the Ivory Coast where strongman Laurent Gbagbo has been clinging to power after losing in November elections.

The panel then went to Abidjan to present the rivals with their proposal, with the exception of Blaise Compaore, accused by Gbagbo's camp of backing Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised as the winner.

The African Union in January tasked the presidents with coming up with a binding solution to the crisis, accepted by both camps, by the end of February. However, the deadline was pushed back by one month.

Friday's meeting comes as the UN Security Council warns the cocoa-producing country is "spiralling" towards civil war, amid mounting violence.

At least six women were shot dead in Abidjan on Thursday by Gbagbo's security forces in a crackdown on a gathering in Abobo, a violence-wracked stronghold of Ouattara in the north of the commercial capital.