Red Cross: At least 800 dead in Ivory Coast

'This incident is particularly shocking in its scope and brutality,' Red Cross official says 

GENEVA — At least 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in one town in Ivory Coast this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday, as rival forces continued to battle for power in the country. 

Fierce fighting appeared to be continuing in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan Saturday with troops loyal to its iincumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo fending off attacks by forces supporting Alassane Ouattara's rival claim to the presidency.
ICRC officials visited the Carrefour area of Duekoue on Thursday and Friday to assess needs and gather testimony, the Red Cross said in a statement said.
"We have information that at least 800 persons were killed on March 29 (Tuesday) in Duekoue in intercommunal violence," ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas told Reuters. "Our colleagues saw hundreds of bodies ... We strongly suspect that was the result of intercommunal violence."
On Monday, the town was taken by the fighters vying to install the democratically elected Ouattara.
Ouattara's government Saturday denied those fighters were involved.
ICRC officials evacuated 28 bodies to the local morgue and will continue in this work.
Since Monday or so, tens of thousands of people have fled the area.
"This incident is particularly shocking in its scope and brutality," Dominique Liengme, head of the ICRC delegation in the country, said in a statement.

Shot, hacked to death The Roman Catholic charity Caritas put the death toll at more than 1,000 people.
Spokesman Patrick Nicholson told The Associated Press that Caritas workers visited Duekoue Wednesday.
He said one neighborhood was filled with bodies of victims killed by gunshots and hacked to death with machetes.
He said the workers "estimate over 1,000 killed."
Story: Ivory Coast Timeline Gbagbo's military spokesman Lt. Col. Alphonse Guano made a televised address Saturday, calling on security forces to report for duty to resist attacks by forces loyal to Ouattara, whose fighters now control most of the country.
A disheveled TV announcer said Gbagbo was at his residence Saturday and that it had not been attacked.
However, the boom of heavy weapons fire rang out constantly from near Gbagbo's residence and presidential palace. Reuters reported that both have come under attack, along with two major military bases.
"We can hear shooting and see soldiers moving but there are also armed civilians running in the streets," said Camara Arnold, a resident of Cocody, the neighborhood that is home to the state television building and Gbagbo's residence.
Two white MI-24 attack helicopters belonging to the United Nations peacekeeping mission circled above central Abidjan's palm-fringed lagoon, but did not intervene.
President refused to quit Gbagbo, who has refused to quit after a November 28 election that U.N.-certified results showed he lost, has been hit by a number of high-level defections in the U.N. spokeswoman Juliette Amantchi confirmed peacekeepers have a base at Duekoue.
She said she had no information about the killings. She spoke by telephone from Abidjan, the embattled commercial capital of Ivory Coast.
The ICRC said earlier this week that thousands have been killed or injured in post-election violence since November, which has driven up to 1 million people from their homes in Abidjan alone.
Some 123,000 Ivorians have fled to Liberia and 5,000 to Ghana, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Gunfire erupted in Abidjan as the fighting continued Saturday.
There have been heavy clashes around the state television station, which went off the air after it was attacked by pro-Ouattara forces over Thursday night, but which resumed broadcasting pro-Gbagbo footage late on Friday.

News Source: MSN