New Massacre Accusations Against Forces of I.Coast President

Forces loyal to Ivory's Coast's internationally-recognized president Alassane Ouattara killed or raped hundreds of people and burned villages during a rampage in late March, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

The rights group revealed new evidence of the summary killings of suspected supporters of strongman Laurent Gbagbo in the far west of the strife-torn country as Ouattara's followers took Gbagbo territory.

But it also detailed atrocities such as the killing of 100 men, women and children in a northern town by Gbagbo's followers and other deadly attacks in nearby towns and villages.

Ouattara denied to U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon that his forces were involved when Ban asked him about the killings last week.

"To understand the tragic events in Ivory Coast, a line cannot be drawn between north and south, or supporters of Gbagbo and Ouattara," said Daniel Bekele, HRW's Africa director.

"Unfortunately, there are those on both sides who have shown little regard for the dignity of human life."

The international Red Cross has already said up to 800 people were killed in a massacre in the western town of Duekoue in late March. According to the United Nations, Ouattara has agreed to hold an investigation.

But HRW reinforced the Duekoue accusations against the followers of Ouattara, who was declared by the U.N. as winner of a presidential election in November, and brought new accounts of atrocities in other towns and villages.

HRW said it interview more than 120 witnesses of killings and relatives of victims on the Liberia-Ivory Coast frontier and contacted 20 others in the western towns of Guiglo, Duekoue, and Blolequin by telephone.

The group accused the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, which is controlled by Ouattara's Prime Minister, Guillaume Soro, of killing opponents between March 6 and March 30 as they took territory from Gbagbo's forces in western Ivory Coast.

Many of those killed were ethnic Guere who mainly supported Gbagbo in last year's election.

HRW said witnesses told how the Ouattara fighters "summarily executed and raped perceived Gbagbo supporters in their homes, as they worked in the fields, as they fled, or as they tried to hide in the bush."