U.N. Peacekeepers Accused Of Sexual Abuses

The U.N. said Friday that it had confined a group of peacekeepers to their base in Ivory Coast after receiving allegations of widespread sexual abuse, the latest in a string of accusations of sexual violations by U.N. forces around the world.

The U.N. mission to Ivory Coast suspended all of the contingent's activities after an internal investigation "revealed serious allegations of widespread sexual exploitation and abuse," the U.N. said.

The U.N. declined to name the peacekeepers' country of origin or provide details of the allegations of wrongdoing by the forces in the northern city of Bouake. Moroccan, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Ghanaian troops are based in Bouake, according to the U.N. Web site.

U.N. officials have said that more than 300 members of U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world have been investigated for sexual exploitation and abuse over the past three years in nations including Congo, Cambodia and Haiti.

At least 18 civilian employees have been dismissed and 17 international police and 144 military personnel sent back to their home countries.

Washington-based Refugees International has said the U.N. allows "a culture that tolerates sexual exploitation and abuse and a tradition of silence."

The U.N. held a three-day conference in the Dominican Republic last month as part of an effort to eliminate sexual misconduct in its global operations.

About 9,000 U.N. troops and 3,500 French soldiers are deployed in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, to prevent an all-out civil war. Many used to patrol the giant buffer zone that divided the West African nation into a rebel-controlled north and a government-ruled south after a brief civil war in 2002.

Since the signing of a peace deal on March 4, Ivorians have begun dismantling the buffer zone, and some of the international peacekeepers stationed have been preparing to leave.