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Perched atop his white UN armoured personnel carrier, Captain Yahia Melhem yells at his driver. " Yella! Yella!" - Let's go!

The Jordanians manning this UN patrol in the centre of Ivory Coast's biggest city are, like everyone else, stuck in traffic. It gives them a rare opportunity to interact with the drivers of cars, pedestrians, and even the passengers in a bus stopped just beside us.

Some are friendly, flashing the peace sign or the thumbs up, but more and more people these past few days are hostile, yelling at the convoy and aggressively waving their arms.

" Quitte-la!" - Get out of here!

The soldier manning the 50-calibre machine gun up front doesn't really understand French but one can't mistake the gist of what they're saying.

Two UN patrols have been attacked in the past two days in Abidjan, the result of "a campaign of hate, fabrications and anti-UN propaganda on state television," said UN head of peacekeeping missions Alain Leroy. This campaign has succeeded in discrediting the peacekeeping mission and inciting violence against them, he said.

Ever since incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refused to relinquish power after last month's election, the UN peacekeepers here find themselves walking a tightrope. The UN, like practically every country and international organization, has endorsed Mr. Gbagbo's opponent, Alassane Ouattara, as the elected president of Ivory Coast, and now protects his compound at the Golf Hotel with a contingent of some 800 soldiers.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon warned Thursday against any attack on the hotel and its peacekeepers, the UN press office said.

The UN peacekeepers' mandate states that they must protect civilians and continue to patrol and investigate any allegations of human rights violations. In a sense, they're both judge and plaintiff in the standoff between two presidents here.

Mr. Gbagbo formally asked the UN to leave the country on Dec. 18 because, in his view, its troops are no longer impartial. Accusations ranging from arming soldiers loyal to Mr. Ouattara to firing on pro-Gbagbo crowds have been repeated on state television every day since then.

The UN estimates that at least 173 people have been killed in the past two weeks, and hundreds more have been abducted from their homes in the night, never to be seen again.

But their patrols are being prevented from investigating these allegations of kidnappings, killings and even a suspected mass grave, said Simon Munzu, head of the local UN Human Rights division in Ivory Coast. Mr. Gbagbo and members of his government have repeatedly denied that any of this is occurring.

Between 60 and 80 bodies were reported in the Banco Forest, a giant park-like green space in the centre of Abidjan on Dec. 19, though no one, journalists, police or even UN, has been able to investigate because the area was shut off by Republican Guard soldiers, reputed to be closest and most loyal to Mr. Gbagbo.

Mr. Munzu said that his latest attempt to investigate the mass grave was turned back by truckloads of soldiers and masked men in civilian clothing.

"We would be the very first to say that these stories are false if they turn out to be false," Mr. Munzu said. "Our findings on the matter and their announcement to the world would have a greater chance of being believed than these repeated denials."

On Tuesday, a three truck UN convoy was stopped by a crowd in the notoriously pro-Gbagbo neighbourhood of Yopougon. In the ensuing melee, a Bangladeshi peacekeeper was struck and injured with a machete and one of the vehicles was set ablaze.

The following day, Jordanian peacekeepers were forced to fire into the air to disperse a hostile crowd - though state television later interviewed a victim in hospital who said that he had been hit.

Human rights organizations have described hundreds of cases of people being kidnapped from their homes by masked men in the night. It's estimated 15,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Liberia and Guinea, and the UN refugee body expects that number to rise to 30,000 before the crisis abates.

"We are on the brink of genocide," said Ivory Coast's new UN ambassador, Youssoufou Bamba, in New York. Mr. Bamba, who replaced Mr. Gbagbo's representative Thursday, said he will be meeting with members of the Security Council to discuss ways to help Mr. Ouattara assume power.

While the world waits to see whether the regional body ECOWAS will decide to follow through on its threat to use military force to remove Mr. Gbagbo from power, the uneasy stalemate continues on the ground - a tinderbox waiting to ignite.

Charles Blé Goudé, Gbagbo's minister of youth and employment, but better known as the street general from his days of organizing violent anti-UN protests, seemed to be returning to his old ways on Wednesday.

Mr. Blé Goudé called on his supporters to descend on the Golf Hotel to remove Mr. Ouattara once and for all "with their bare hands." He gave the deadline of Dec. 31.

"He who attacks Laurent Gbagbo will sorely regret it," he said. "No one can remove our president from power."

But that, it seems, is exactly what the UN is trying to do.

Still stuck in traffic, the UN patrol began to get antsy. Capt. Melhem doesn't like being boxed in by cars and busses. There's no way to get out, he explains in his broken English.

Just as two women standing outside of an evangelical church begin screaming profanities at the convoy, a speeding dump truck rumbles past, the passenger almost entirely out of the window, craning his neck to get his message across.

"Tu n'as qu'à partir!" - You better leave!

While pro-Gbagbo security forces came to the aid of the two UN patrols attacked this week, these UN soldiers are becoming less concerned about their relations with Mr. Gbagbo and more worried about their chances in the street.

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