Neighbours of a country 'on the brink of genocide'
| 10:49 UK time, Thursday, 30 December 2010
Youssoufou Bamba has said there had been large scale violation of human rights as a result of the ongoing political unrest, stemming from the refusal of Laurent Gbagbo to step down despite his rival, Alassane Ouattara, being internationally accepted as the winner of the presidential election.
Bamba is an appointment by Ouattara, so clearly his words may not come from an entirely neutral perspective. Nevertheless, these are clearly worrying times for Ivorians. The number of deaths attributed to the crisis was already in the hundreds last week.
Should the worst happen, it will likely trigger a stream of people desperate to flee into Ivory Coast's neighbours - Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana - and perhaps even further afield.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent have already launched a million-dollar appeal to help neighbouring countries cope with the influx.
If you're in the region, what would your reaction be? Is there any chance of averting genocide in Ivory Coast? How should other West African countries be responding? How can they help? And what should the UN be doing?
