Dozens of bodies dumped in Abidjan forest

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Dozens of bodies of young men, apparently shot dead at close range, littered a grassy clearing in a forest on the outskirts of Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan Friday, witnesses said.

Reuters correspondent Silvia Aloisi said from the scene that the bodies had been discovered in the Banco Forest to the northwest of the city, one day after people's power protests that toppled army ruler Robert Geui degenerated into political and ethnic clashes.

"It looks as though they were shot at close range," Aloisi said. "Several were stripped naked."

One group of about 10 bodies lay strewn across one corner of the clearing. As many as 40 bodies littered the ground nearby.

The identity of the dead or their ethnic origin was not clear.

Thursday's clashes set supporters of former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara against followers of the country's new President, Laurent Gbagbo, who won Sunday's presidential election.

Ouattara, who draws his support from the Muslim north and its migrants, was excluded from the election. His supporters took to the streets as Guei fled to demand that a new election be held.

Gbagbo's supporters come essentially from the animist and Christian west.

Ouattara has accused members of the security forces of siding with Gbagbo loyalists and targeting men from the north.

His spokesman Aly Coulibaly put the death toll during three days of protest and violence at 155, many of them from the north.

He said Friday that 316 people had been wounded and 116 detained.

"There's a problem of human rights here," he said.

Initial estimates of the death toll during the people's power protests Tuesday and Wednesday and during Thursday's political and ethnic clashes topped 100.

Soldiers loyal to Guei fired into the crowd at the height of the protests that toppled him.

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