JOHANNESBURG — More than 800 people have been massacred in a western Ivory Coast town where hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers are based, the International Federation of the Red Cross said Saturday.

But the U.N. military spokesman said he had no information about mass killings there.

The Roman Catholic charity Caritas put the toll at more than 1,000 dead, an estimate reached by its workers who visited the town of Duekoue on Wednesday.

Spokesman Patrick Nicholson said Caritas workers found the town’s Carrefour neighborhood filled with bodies of victims who died from gunshot wounds or were hacked to death with machetes.

The government of internationally recognized President Alassane Ouattara meanwhile denied its forces were involved in any atrocities including in western Ivory Coast, without referring to the latest allegations. Previously, the United Nations put the death toll at 492 from four months of fighting to install rival leaders following disputed November elections.