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French citizens flee Ivory Coast violence
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-11 08:49
Hundreds of French citizens fled their former colony Ivory Coast on Wednesday
after days of anti-French riots and looting in a country once seen as a model
for Africa of post-independence prosperity.
Some 843 French nationals were flown to Paris from Abidjan, the main city in
the world's top cocoa grower, after supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo
chased the expatriates from their homes.
"I don't have a job any more or a house ... They took the bath, the furniture
and electrical wires, everything," said Bruno Regis, at the airport with his
wife and three children.
![French nationals wait for flights out of the Ivory Coast in the passenger hall of the international airport at Abidjan on November 10, 2004. France was preparing to airlift citizens from its former colony after more than 2,000 French and foreign nationals were chased from their homes by violent mobs loyal to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo. [Reuters]](xin_11110111084904601881.jpg)
French nationals
wait for flights out of the Ivory Coast in the passenger hall of the
international airport at Abidjan on November 10, 2004. France was
preparing to airlift citizens from its former colony after more than 2,000
French and foreign nationals were chased from their homes by violent mobs
loyal to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo.
[Reuters] | "The way it ended here, I wouldn't come back here even if they offered me a
new job," said the teacher from Marseilles.
More than 2,200 French and other foreign nationals have been sheltering in
French and U.N. bases in Abidjan after crowd violence exploded on Saturday.
Angry mobs went on the rampage after the French army wiped out most of the
West African nation's small fleet of military aircraft in retaliation for the
bombing of a French base.
The Ivorian government's medical services co-ordinator, Richard Kadio, said
French soldiers had shot dead 54 people around the country and injured 1,266
between Saturday and Tuesday.
"The French reaction was too rapid, too disproportionate," Gbagbo told French
television on Wednesday of the strike on the air fleet. "There was a chain of
events and today the only thing I regret is that not enough time was left to
make inquiries."
The Ivorian army accused French troops of behaving like an occupying force,
saying on state television that they had opened fire on security forces as they
deployed to secure Abidjan.
Saturday's air strike, which killed nine French peacekeepers and a U.S. aid
worker, came during an offensive launched by Gbagbo's forces to dislodge rebels
who seized the north of the country in 2002 after failing to topple the
president.
"(Gbagbo) has to understand that you do not kill French soldiers without
there being an immediate response, that you do not kill French soldiers with
impunity," French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told French television.
Relief and sadness
Some 150 American, Australian, Canadian, Spanish and Portuguese nationals
also left from Abidjan's sleek, modern airport on Wednesday.
People queuing in the departures hall clutched the few belongings they had
salvaged. Some rested on military camp beds, women tended to babies and children
played with luggage trolleys. The atmosphere was one of sadness mixed with
relief.
Britain has drawn up plans for troops to help evacuate the several hundred
nationals it has in the country if the situation gets worse, Prime Minister Tony
Blair's spokesman said.
The riots have blocked cocoa exports, vital for a country which grows more
than 40 percent of the world's cocoa beans, and inflamed ethnic tensions in a
major cocoa town.
Independent of Paris since 1960 and made wealthy by cocoa, Ivory Coast has
been on a downward slide since a military coup in 1999 tarnished its reputation
as an economic powerhouse.
Gbagbo won power in disputed polls a year later. But since the failed coup,
the country of 17 million has been cut in two with more than 10,000 French and
United Nations peacekeepers in the middle to keep the warring sides apart.
Despite pressure from African leaders, terrified another bout of war could
plunge the whole region into conflict, there has been little progress on peace
deals and the impasse remains.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has arranged talks with opposition
leaders in Pretoria for later this week while Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo has called for an emergency summit of West African leaders. South
Africa said the 53-member African Union may send soldiers to Ivory Coast.
Several small clusters of youths draped in national flags ran to join
anti-French protesters outside Abidjan's state television building on Wednesday,
singing the national anthem.
"We are still here today. The white people want to kill us but it won't stop
us coming out to demonstrate," said a young woman catching her breath while
running with a group of 20 or 30 to the crowd of several thousand outside the
television center.
A prison worker at Abidjan's biggest prison said some 4,000 prisoners had
escaped through tunnels over the past week amid the chaos. On state television,
government officials called on Ivorians to go back to work on Thursday.
At least 10 protesters were killed and hundreds injured on Tuesday from
gunfire outside the city's landmark Hotel Ivoire. Protesters said French troops
shot at them but Paris said Ivorian forces opened fire after the crowd attacked
them.
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