Ivory Coast creates mediation body in aftermath of election violence

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Ivory Coast has set up a committee to promote national reconciliation after ethnic and political violence left scores of people dead last week, an official said Wednesday.

"We have taken the initiative to set up a mediation committee for national reconciliation -- of all Ivorians," Mathieu Ekra, who holds the title of national mediator in the West African country, said on state television.

Ekra said the committee would create a framework for dialogue to rebuild confidence between political parties, their activists and security forces.

Scores of people were killed and hundreds injured in political and ethnic clashes that followed popular protests which forced out army ruler General Robert Guei. Guei had tried to rig the result of a presidential election won by Socialist Laurent Gbagbo.

After Gbagbo claimed victory, supporters of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, whose power base is among northern Muslims, took to the streets demanding a new poll as Ouattara had been barred from standing. Gbagbo has large following in the Christian and animist west and south.

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