Guest Thinkers — April 4, 2011

Civil War Simmers in Ivory Coast

The United Nations has started to evacuate its staff from Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast, ahead of a bloody final battle for the city that is expected to start today.

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The Ivory Coast began a slow descent into civil war last year when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after losing a popular election to the now president-elect Alassane Ouattara. Now the city of Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital, is at the center of a gruesome battle for control. France has taken control of the country’s airports to allow for evacuations of foreign nationals, and while tens of thousands of U.N. peace keepers have been deployed to West Africa, the international community’s response to Ivory Coast has been much less forceful than the no-fly zone it imposed on Libya.

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