In February 2011, more than 40,000 Ivorians refugees fled post election violence and insecurity after two presidential candidates both claimed victory. Liberians, who had been refugees in Ivory Coast just a couple of years earlier, are hosting many refugees in villages along the border and others are being relocated to camps by UNHCR.
More Ivorians are crossing into Liberia daily as violence intensifies and civil war becomes imminent.
Commissioned by UNHCR. See more photos at www.glennagordon.com.
About Scarlett Lion
I’m an American photographer and journalist traipsing around Africa on the lookout for the ordinary and the extraordinary, using my camera as a pretext to enter worlds not otherwise available.
This space is a scrap book of web and life trawlings – photography, music, arts, politics, and other sundry subjects. It is also a vanity press for my unpublished (and occasionally) published work.
I found the scarlett lion on the roof a friend’s house in Kampala back in 2006 when I went through a crate of discarded items he and a few other artists had gathered. On that day, I was looking for something and I found the lion: a discarded kid’s toy made in China on the cheap, that somehow found it’s way to East Africa. Something about the hollowed out, paint chipped figurine appealed to my understanding of this amazing continent: I’d never seen a real lion, after all.
Previously based in Uganda, currently in Liberia. Always roaming.
Ivory Coast'sdescent into 'madness' |
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 The UN estimates more than 350,000 people have fled Abidjan
A bitterly disputed election result in the Ivory Coast is pulling the country apart and has left the country divided. The thick mahogany doors of the mansion stand ajar as young children run in and out. A trail of odd junk litters the yard. A small upturned table here, papers there. The walls blackened by fire. A palatial home, ransacked earlier by youths. The police had been there already, eyewitnesses said - not to stop the theft, but to load up their vehicles with the loot. An estimated 20 homes belonging to government ministers and their supporters were attacked last weekend in Abidjan. The mistake these politicians made was to win November's election, and then to insist that winning a vote meant you get to take over. The former president did not like that. The new government may be able to shelter under UN protection at a lagoon-side hotel, but their homes, cars and families are fair game for the old government. Destructive rage This was a part of Africa that did not need handouts to develop, just a few decent politicians.
Instead it has seen a race to the bottom for power at any price, with the very real threat of a return to civil war. Ivorians witness the destruction with shock and incredulity. My friend Bernard's work is linked to the port. He has lost his job - as has everyone at his company - because almost nothing is being shipped anymore. Another friend, Aude, has lost her job running a restaurant - few people eat out any more, in what was once one of Africa's culinary capitals. The central bank closed a month and a half ago, private banks two weeks ago. The destructive rage is almost a madness.
Attacking mosques in a country roughly divided half-and-half between Muslims and Christians who until now were living peacefully side by side. Emptying the army ammunition stores to hand out Kalashnikovs to unemployed youths whipped up into anger by their patrons' propaganda. Each side is using foreign mercenaries, then accusing the other side of using foreign support. At one of the city's many checkpoints, I am ordered out of the car as young men with guns search for weapons. They say they are doing their civic duty by blocking the flow of arms. But I have never heard of them finding any and the only civilians illegally carrying arms I have seen were the ones running the roadblocks. Both sides have burnt their victims alive. "You burn one, we'll burn 10," said one Gbagbo supporter at a barricade in Yopougon.
In one chilling video, a pile of bodies writhe in pain after a beating. Burning tyres and tables are placed on top of them to form an evening bonfire. The police - clearly in shot, actually help out the crowd. Images of the violence, taken with mobile phone cameras, are everywhere. At the moment the internet offers up a daily collection of horrors from Ivory Coast - the families burned during an attack on their village, the women out protesting peacefully for change mown down by canon fire from a convoy of government vehicles leaving seven dead, armed youths threatening death to the other side.
Tens of thousands have fled Ivory Coast, as the pro-Ouattara forces in the north start to move south. In Abidjan, an armed group in the northern suburb of Abobo, nicknamed the "invisible commandos", has made the district a virtual no-go area for the national security forces, which are still publicly loyal to Laurent Gbagbo. This so-called "autonomous republic of Abobo" is a telling sign that - even with far superior weaponry - the pro-Gbagbo forces struggle to control their own main city. The UN says at least 200,000 have fled the district, many taking shelter with families elsewhere, others in churches and mosques. A generation ago if you asked a West African to think of a country that meant stability and prosperity, the answer would have been Ivory Coast. At one prayer meeting I hear a woman cry out to God for a return to the times when this was a land of hospitality and peace. This is the country where I work, but it is also now home. I have lived here for more than three years. My wife is Ivorian, and only recently I picked up my own Ivorian passport. At the same time I bought a house. This remains a place of friendly people, amazing fresh fruit, long and unspoilt tropical beaches, and, yes, it ought to have a bright future. But at the moment, the place is being held hostage, and there seem to be more atrocities committed every day. I wonder when my family should evacuate. The dark clouds seem to be gathering. Ivorians wanted one president but they got two, they wanted peace and they got war, they were promised debt relief, but instead the country defaulted on its debt, they wanted prosperity and the economy shut down. There is an important word here that I have never found the equivalent for in English - "Yako". It is a deeply-felt way of saying, "I'm so sorry". Ivory Coast, "Yako". |
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A generation ago if you asked a West African to think of a country that meant stability and prosperity, the answer would have been Ivory Coast 
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>via: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9420140.stm |
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Ivory Coast crisis: 'Nearly 450,000 refugees'
Pro-Gbagbo forces have shot Abidjan protesters this week
More than 450,000 people have fled their homes because of the crisis in Ivory Coast, the UN refugee agency says.
Dead bodies were being eaten by dogs in the streets of the main city, Abidjan after recent fighting, a UNHCR spokeswoman told the BBC.
Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner of last year's poll, has gone to regional powerhouse Nigeria to get help ousting his rival.
Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power.
There are growing fears that the situation could descend into civil war.
Former rebel forces who support Mr Ouattara still control the north while most of the army remains loyal to Mr Gbagbo.
Some 9,000 UN peacekeepers are in the country, monitoring a ceasefire line between the two forces.
However, the UN envoy to Ivory Coast has suggested that Mr Gbagbo may be losing control of some of the security forces.
Mr Ouattara flew to the Nigerian capital after the African Union endorsed him as the rightful winner of November's election.
The AU suggestion he share power with Mr Gbagbo - an option vehemently rejected by Mr Gbagbo's allies.
'Desolate scenes'Some 370,000 people have fled their homes in Abidjan, while a further 77,000 have crossed into neighbouring Liberia, according to the UNHCR.
It said the "unfolding tragedy" in Ivory Coast had been overlooked while international attention has been focused on North Africa.
"We're seeing a lot of desolate scenes like dead bodies still littering the streets of [Abidjan district] Abobo where's there's been a lot of violence for weeks," UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba told the BBC.
"The dead bodies [are] being eaten by dogs - these dogs are becoming dangerous so the humanitarian situation is really, really difficult right now," she said.
Mr Gbagbo accuses the UN of being biased against him and has banned their aircraft from flying over territory he controls.
This could make it difficult for Mr Ouattara to return to Abidjan when he leaves Nigeria.
It is the first time Mr Ouattara has left the hotel since the results were declared in December.
He has called for West African nations to take military action to oust Mr Gbagbo but there appears to be little appetite for this.
Last year's long-delayed elections had been supposed to reunify the country - once the richest in West Africa - which has been divided since a 2002 civil war.
The UN-backed electoral commission says Mr Ouattara won presidential elections in November, but the Constitutional Council overruled it, citing rigging in the north, where pro-Ouattara forces are in control.
>via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12718544