Ivory Coast Calls Young Men to Battle

MONOKO-ZOHI, Ivory Coast —  The embattled government urged able-bodied young men Saturday to mobilize for the battlefront to fight a rebel uprising that threatens to consume the West African country.

Men ages 22 to 26 were asked to report to army headquarters in the commercial capital, Abidjan, beginning Tuesday.

The call came as rebels and locals in western Ivory Coast said insurgents had taken another town, Blolekin, and were pushing east into the heart of the nation, said Maj. Frederic Thomazo, who was part of a 1,000-strong French contingent in the former colony.

Meanwhile, tensions continued to mount in the wake of the discovery of a mass grave in the village of Monoko-Zohi. Villagers said Saturday that the grave contained 120 unarmed civilians killed by government soldiers.

Ivory Coast’s army and government strongly denied wrongdoing, insisting Saturday that the dead were rebels.

“Look, this is very simple,” spokesman Col. Jules Yao Yao said by telephone. “The victims were rebels who were killed in combat. They then gathered the bodies and buried them together. It’s as simple as that.”

However, insurgents denied that their militia was in Monoko-Zohi, and villagers said the victims were merchants and guest workers on the region’s cocoa and coffee fields. Villagers said the killing started when six marked Ivory Coast military trucks arrived Nov. 27 carrying uniformed soldiers.

The soldiers accused the villagers of feeding rebels and then went from house to house with a list of names, survivors said.

French troops, in Ivory Coast to enforce a now-shattered cease-fire, first reported the mass grave Friday. Associated Press viewed the scene Saturday. Monoko-Zohi is about 70 miles northwest of the government-held city of Daloa.