Ivory Coast Officials Inciting Violence (Video)

A woman crosses the street in front of a burnt-out United Nations peacekeeper car on Thursday in the Yopougon neighbourhood of Abidjan, home to supporters of Laurent Gbagbo. A mob attacked a UN convoy in Abidjan on December 28, 2010, injuring one peacekeeper with a machete and setting a vehicle alight, the UN said. (Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands Flee Crisis in Ivory Coast (NTD Television)

United Nations officials Thursday expressed concern that leaders in the Ivory Coast are inciting violence among the populace and warned that an attack on the newly elected president could trigger civil war.

The U.N. stressed its concern after a report that one of the top officials supporting incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo had called for an attack on the hotel where President-elect Alassane Ouattara is headquartered.

“Any attack on the Golf Hotel could provoke widespread violence that could reignite civil war,” the U.N. said in a statement.

The U.N. peacekeeping forces are guarding the Golf Hotel.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the peacekeepers are “authorized to use all necessary means to protect its personnel, as well as the government officials and other civilians at these premises of the hotel.”

The official who called for the hotel attack, Charles Ble Goude, served as the country’s Youth minister and leader of the Young Patriot movement in Gbagbo’s government.

Ouattara was officially recognized as president after presidential elections on Nov. 28, but Gbagbo has refused to step down.

International peacekeeping bodies have reported a little improvement in the West African country, since the violence following its political deadlock killed more than 170 people.

“We see some signs of improvement, but the situation is very tense and the improvement of the past few days, nobody can promise that they will sustain it for many days or weeks,” U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy said in an earlier statement.

Gbagbo himself has not given any indication that he will relinquish power after he met with delegations from other West Africans on Tuesday.

Recently the U.N. mission in the Ivory Coast (UNOCI) said it was prevented from investigating reports of the existence of a mass grave in the village of N’Dotré, north of Abidjan.

“The team, however, saw a building where, according to available information, between 60 and 80 bodies were found,” the head of UNOCI’s human rights division, Simon Munzu, told reporters in the capital Abidjan, according to the U.N.

Since the violence erupted, human rights groups have reported numerous abductions from pro-Ouattara neighborhoods in Abidjan.

So far the U.N. refugee agency said that about 20,000 people have fled to eastern Liberia to escape the violence.