In a statement released on Wednesday, the African Union (AU) said the presidents of South Africa, Chad, Mauritania and Tanzania had held high-level discussions with all parties involved and would meet to discuss their next move in the coming days.
The AU panel is the latest mediation effort aimed at ending the crisis, which has claimed around 300 lives since President Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down in the wake of November’s disputed presidential elections.
South African President Jacob Zuma was crowded by angry pro-Gbagbo youths during the visit. Burkina Faso leader Blaise Compaore had earlier pulled out of the mission in anticipation of such a violent welcome or worse.
The Young Patriots group, led by Gbagbo’s feared lieutenant Charles Ble Goude, had threatened to storm the airport in Abidjan and prevent Compaore, who is seen as pro-Ouattara, from entering the country.
As the mediators repeatedly tried to convince Gbagbo to step down, clashes continued in neighbourhoods of the economic capital Abidjan.
At least three people were reported killed in one pro-Ouattara neighborhood on Tuesday, bringing the estimated death toll since clashes broke out on Saturday to more than a dozen.
Domestic pressure
February had been relatively calm as Ouattara’s camp appeared to be waiting for economic and diplomatic pressure to bear fruit, but on Saturday they called for “an Egypt-like revolution”.
Witnesses said security forces opened fire on the protesters who answered the call.
“We are not going to leave the streets until Gbagbo steps down,” said one protester, Ahmadou Sangare, as he sat in an Abidjan health clinic with a friend injured by a bullet. “We are not going to wait for the results of the African Union panel. Gbagbo is not a man to trust.”
November’s presidential election was supposed to help consign to history the negative effects of 2002’s civil war, which split the country into the Muslim north and Christian south.
Instead, the West African nation was plunged into chaos when a Gbagbo ally on the constitutional council overturned electoral commission results declaring Ouattara the winner.
Neither domestic pressure nor a range of international sanctions have shifted the strongman leader, who has seen his country descend into economic chaos as banks shut down and cocoa exports are hit by the crisis.
Ouattara has been attempting to run an alternative government from behind a government blockade at an Abidjan resort hotel protected by UN peacekeepers.