Gabon's post-election violence claims more lives

Post-election violence in Gabon has claimed two more lives, sources said today, after President Ali Bongo was proclaimed winner of last week's vote while main challenger Jean Ping claimed victory for himself.

One of the two new victims was a policeman, the first member of the Gabonese security forces listed as killed in the violence sparked by the announcement on Wednesday of Bongo's victory in last weekend's election.

"I deplore the death of a police officer who was shot in Oyem," the main town in the north, Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet-Boubeya told AFP.

The attackers, who shot the policeman in the head, were arrested as they attempted to cross the border with Equatorial Guinea.
 

The interior minister added that, despite the ongoing violence, "we are seeing life returning to Libreville", with businesses beginning to reopen their doors.

However the Gabonese capital has been without internet access since Wednesday.

Tension was also high in the economic capital Port-Gentil where a youth was shot dead by security forces overnight, according to witnesses.

"The parents wanted to march with the body up to the government building with many other people. They were dispersed by security and defence forces," one witness told AFP.

Several residents said the death was just one of several in Port-Bentil in recent days caused by the security forces.

"They shoot, they take the bodies away, we are traumatised," one mother said.

Such claims have not been independently verified, but according to an AFP count the latest deaths bring the recent death toll to seven.

The archbishop of Libreville on today called on both the ruling party and the opposition to avoid an "imminent crisis".

Bongo was declared victorious by a razor-thin margin of just under 6,000 votes, but his main challenger Ping, a veteran diplomat and former top African Union official, has insisted the vote was rigged and yesterday claimed victory for himself.

"The whole world knows who is president of the republic, it's me Jean Ping," he said.

Ping is calling for a recount at every polling station and has highlighted the election result in the Bongo family stronghold of Upper Ogooue, where official figures showed the president won 90 per cent of the votes case on 99 per cent turnout.