Thirsty and hungry of Abidjan fear leaving their homes as food and water crisis grows
A macabre welcome greeted new arrivals to Abidjan on Tuesday morning: a dozen corpses lined up on a roadside by a petrol station, bullet wounds to their heads.
The wounds and the neat line-up of the bodies suggested an execution. A soldier in the forces of Alassane Ouattara, now in control of the area, said they were shot by troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, as they rushed to meet advancing Ouattara soldiers.
After days of promise, Ouattara's rebels launched their final assault to unseat Gbagbo. A lull in fighting on the motorway leading to the centre of Abidjan, the one-time "Paris of Africa", allowed the air to be filled with birdsong. But the acrid stench of death was apparent.
Further down the road, a burnt-out armoured vehicle from Gbagbo's army straddled the road and the gutter, smoke still wafting from its insides.
A civilian was hiding between two corpses lying in the middle of the road. The bodies were pro-Gbagbo soldiers blown out of a pick-up truck mounted with a machine gun.
Close by, an army tank was in flames, its own light ammunition popping like firecrackers.
It was not clear how the vehicles came unstuck. But earlier, UN and French forces had confirmed they would use their mandate to protect civilians as grounds to take out Gbagbo's heavy weapons.
At the petrol station nearby, troops wearing the insignia of the northern fighters who have declared allegiance to Ouattara took turns at the pumps. It was like any motorway service station - except that the queues were of troop carriers and trucks with rocket launchers, and credit cards were neither needed nor accepted.
Groups of civilians emerged from surrounding neighbourhoods with plastic canisters, desperate to find water and food before the midday curfew imposed by the Ouattara camp.
In the district of Dogbe, several dozen people struck lucky as they come across a water pipe hit by a bullet, spraying its contents across the road. "We haven't had water for two days, there is nothing to eat," said Moussa, 19, walking away with a wheelbarrow filled with water canisters. He said three people were killed in his neighbourhood during fighting overnight, but a lack of bare necessities was pushing people out of their homes.
"Of course we are afraid," he said. "But we are also thirsty."
An unnamed Save the Children aid worker in Abidjan spoke of the desperation faced by families in search of supplies. "The curfew starts at noon, so we go out before that to stock up. There are people lining up in front of the shops that are open. There is a demand here and people are lining up from 6am. People are only served at 10am, so they are waiting for hours."
Ivory Coast was an economic powerhouse of west Africa, and still one of the only countries in the region with four-lane motorways, skyscrapers, escalators and wine bars. Its decline is the bleak legacy of Laurent Gbagbo, a former professor of history who now finds himself on the wrong side of it.
A humanitarian catastrophe could be unfolding, with fears of reprisal attacks even if the official war between Ouattara and Gbagbo ends.
Much of Abidjan was quiet in the afternoon, but there were reports of sporadic gunfire. Bile Ben Bile, in Abidjan, wrote on the BBC website: "I fear a bloodbath after the imminent fall of the incumbent president. There have been ongoing tensions over the past few days in the Port Bouet area of Abidjan between Gbagbo's armed militia and pro-Ouattara youths. I fear this could escalate now into mass killing between these two groups. Both of them are armed and have machetes."
Many people have not left their homes since last Wednesday, when Ouattara's fighters arrived on the outskirts of the city, which set off heavy fighting.
Joceline Djaha, 24, a new mother, had barricaded herself and her children inside her home. She had stopped eating two days ago, when her stock ran out, she told the Associated Press. For several days, her only food had been boiled spaghetti without sauce. Her breast milk has now dried up and her one-year-old, she said, had become listless. "Please let this stop," Djaha said. "I can hold out without food. But I'm not sure my child can."
Médecins Sans Frontières issued an urgent appeal on Monday night for all warring factions to allow people to reach medical care. "It is just too dangerous. We are not able to cross the bridges to get access to the hospital," said Xavier Simon, its head of mission in Abidjan.
MSF is treating about 40 people a day, and most are civilians, he said. "They are mainly victims of stray bullets … This is an emergency, the humanitarian needs are huge. In some areas of the city there is a shortage of water, in all parts of the city people are starting to miss food … There is a shortage of drugs and medical supplies in all the hospitals."
Simon added: "Our main goal at the moment is to leave the office and start to give supplies to the hospitals. What we need is authorisation to move safely. It has not improved. We heard a lot of gunshot in our area this morning … The humanitarian needs are huge and we cannot access the population so it is really becoming difficult."
The International Organisation for Migration said Gbagbo's youth militia have launched armed, xenophobic attacks against west African nationals and Malian migrants, with guns and knives. There are few signs that it will subside.
"IOM has received a desperate request for assistance from a group of some 3,000 Malian migrants, including many women and children, who have been living for the past 10 days in the basement and the halls of the Malian embassy in Abidjan," it said.
"Many have sustained bullet and machete wounds from attacks carried out by armed youth militias loyal to the incumbent president Gbagbo. Without running water for the past 72 hours, they say they dare not walk to the nearby lagoon for fear of further violence," said the IOM.