Trapped American schoolchildren rescued

French troops today came to the rescue of 100 American schoolchildren trapped by heavy fighting during a bloody uprising in Ivory Coast.

About 300 US citizens were pinned down in the central city of Bouake, where terrified residents reported artillery and gunfire continuing despite government claims to have regained control.

Among them were the youngsters aged five to eighteen at the US-led International Christian Academy. None were believed to have been hurt, but they have been surrounded by fighting since the coup attempt was launched last Thursday.

Elsewhere, a small team of British soldiers were making plans to evacuate the 500 Britons living in the West African country – if it becomes necessary.

The coup was launched by about 800 former soldiers angry after being dismissed from the army for suspected disloyalty. President Laurent Gbago has pledged to rout them from Bouake and another guerilla stronghold, Korhogo.

At least 270 people have died in the uprising.

US troops flew into the once prosperous country today after repeated calls for help from the trapped students and staff at the school.

But it was the 100 well-armed French soldiers who made it to the campus first in Ivory Coast’s second-largest city.

The rebels had scaled the walls on Monday and used the school grounds to fire from.

“Nobody was firing at them, but there was gunfire all around,” said a spokesman for an affiliated church in the US.

The children and teachers “are perfectly secure and are protected by our forces,” French army Colonel Charles de Kersabiec said later.

But residents said the rebels still controlled the city streets and could be seen cruising around in commandeered vehicles.

Water and electricity had been cut since the weekend, most shops were shuttered, and prices of food and fuel were skyrocketing, they said. Few braved the rebel barricades thrown up across the city.

“Everyone is at home. We are running out of everything,” said one frightened Ivorian woman. “We are scared.”

In London, a Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed that a handful of British military staff were on the ground to assess the situation and help embassy staff.

There are no evacuation plans yet, but Britons have been told to stay indoors and monitor the situation through local media.

British Embassy officials are also in regular contact with them, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

The uprising is the worst crisis Ivory Coast has faced since since the country’s first coup in 1999.

Thousands of Westerners live in Ivory Coast, the economic powerhouse of former French West Africa, but none are known to have been killed in the five days of fighting.

But the bloodshed has inflamed tensions between the mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.

Paramilitary police over the weekend burned a mostly Muslim shantytown in Abidjan, and Muslim northerners and immigrant workers report arrests and beatings.

The government has repeatedly accused the country’s predominantly Muslim, opposition and unspecified foreign countries – widely assumed to include Burkina Faso – of having a hand in the unrest that has overtaken the country since 1999.