Tunis - The African Development Bank slapped "technical" sanctions on Ivory Coast in January for defaulting on debt repayments, the bank's president Donald Kaberuka said Monday.
"The country has been under sanctions since January because it did not pay back its debts to the bank, about €25m," the president told AFP in an interview.
"These are technical sanctions, not political. Our operational relations with the Ivory Coast today are non-existent."
Kaberuka said that about 80 people working for the bank in Abidjan, its historic headquarters, have been evacuated and that work on renovating the building has been suspended. The bank has been based temporarily in Tunis.
"What is happening is tragic for this country (Ivory Coast), for its people and the west African region," he said.
"It was the engine of the region. The elections (of November 28) were supposed to have ended a decade of crisis," he said as strongman Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to step down since losing the ballot to Alassane Ouattara, was captured by his rival's forces in Abidjan.