French targeted by Ivory Coast mob
They were laying siege to a French military base and searching house to house for French families after the former colonial power was accused of “aggression” against government forces.
France’s military sent helicopters to pluck trapped expatriates from buildings as other helicopters and armoured vehicles moved out to confront the mobs, lobbing volleys of tear gas and percussion grenades that sent rioters fleeing.
French gunships took up positions at bridges in skyscraper-lined Abidjan on yesterday, a day after seizing control of the country’s two airports and flying in 600 reinforcements.
Faced with the confrontation with France, the Ivory Coast government reluctantly moved to call off its offensive against rebels who control the northern part of the country. The government broke a more than year-old cease-fire last week by launching airstrikes against the rebels.
The government yesterday said it was willing to cease fire and that it would pull back its troops. French retaliation on Saturday for a bombing raid that killed French peacekeepers destroyed Ivory Coast’s tiny air force and left its airports under French control.
The Ivory Coast will ask the UN Security Council for action against France, presidential spokesman Desire Tagro said. “We are faced with aggression by one country against another country. We are going to inform the entire world ... that France has come to attack us.”
About 4,000 French and 6,000 UN troops are posted in Ivory Coast, manning a buffer zone between the loyalist south and the north, held by rebels since civil war broke out in September 2002 in the world’s top cocoa producer. The foreign presence aims to hold together a country vital to the stability of a the region.
France’s retaliation - destroying the military’s five helicopter gunships and two Russian-made Sukhoi warplanes - came after the Sukhois bombed a French peacekeeping position in the north, killing nine French peacekeepers and an American consultant working for an aid group.
Mob violence after France’s response claimed more victims. A Red Cross official, Kim Gordon-Bates, said about 150 people had been wounded in Abidjan, most from bullets. The official refused to give any information on deaths.
State television showed the bodies of what it said were five loyalists killed by French forces.
About 300 French troop reinforcements landed yesterday at Abidjan’s international airport, which was taken by France late on Saturday after it destroyed what it said was the entire Ivory Coast air force.
Another 300 reinforcements would be sent from France, the French defence ministry said. Three French military planes, including a medical support aircraft, were en route to Ivory Coast, while three French military Mirage fighter jets were on standby in Gabon.
