UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon rejected the order without delay, reiterating that ONUCI will accomplish its mission of “peacekeeping” in the troubled West African country.

President-elect Alassane Ouattara and his Prime Minister Soro Guillaume said Gbagbo’s demand is “ridiculous, because he’s no longer the president of Ivory Coast and therefore has no authority to order UN peacekeepers and French soldiers to leave.”

ONUCI has up to 10,000 soldiers, while the 900-men French troop’s essential mission is to protect some 15,000 French nationals in the country.

Human Rights

On Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, denounced “massive violations of human rights” in Ivory Coast, which have caused more than 50 deaths during the last three days of the opposition street protests.

Pillay said more than 200 people had been injured and some 100 more and their family members – most from the opposition - had been abducted during curfew by armed men escorted by forces loyal to Gbagbo and taken to unknown places for summary execution.

Ivorian independent daily L’Inter reported on Monday the discovery of a mass grave of 65 bodies in Banco forest in Abidjan.

In a statement released on Sunday, the country’s Muslim leaders’ organisation (COSIM) said forces loyal to Gbagbo attacked three mosques in Abidjan and in the coastal city of Grand Bassam, throwing teargas at the faithful during prayer time and killing about two people. But the police said two of their vehicles were damaged by Muslim youths on Saturday in Bassam during a protest.

Most of Ouattara’s supporters are Muslims.

Youth movement

Gbagbo’s new Youth and Employment Minister Blé Goudé began mobilising his very active youth movement called Young Patriots – mostly composed of university students – over the weekend. He swore they would defend Gbagbo with their last sweat and blood.

In Paris on Sunday, demonstrators of both Gbagbo and Ouattara clashed at the police headquarters, AFP said. The two groups were holding separate rallies to support their different leaders. One person was stabbed with a knife, according to reports.

Departures

Britain has asked all its nationals to quit the Ivory Coast as soon as possible. The United States on Sunday reiterated the need for its embassy’s non-essential personnel to leave the country with immediate effect. Holland and Belgium have also made similar calls.

On Sunday, the Canadian government called on Gbagbo to accept defeat and cede power to his rival Ouattara widely acknowledged as the winner of the Nov.28 presidential run-off, whose initial result as given by the independent electoral commission was invalidated by the country’s Constitutional Council – an institution run by Gbagbo’s allies – which annulled some 600,000 votes from Ouattara’s northern stronghold for allege massive frauds. But almost all the accredited observers said there were no such frauds.

Both men have sworn in themselves as presidents and are running parallel governments.