Enlarge imageBy Peter Murphy and Emmanuel Braun
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Hundreds of French citizens have fled their former colony Ivory Coast after days of anti-French riots and looting in a country once seen as a model for Africa of post-independence prosperity.
Nearly 600 French nationals took off from the main city Abidjan in two aircraft during the afternoon and two more planes were due to leave the world’s top cocoa grower on Wednesday.
About 150 American, Australian, Canadian and Spanish nationals gathered at Abidjan’s sleek, modern airport. A Spanish air force plane was parked waiting to fly away its citizens, along with the Americans, the airport manager said.
"I don’t have a job any more or a house ... They took the bath, the furniture and electrical wires, everything," said Bruno Regis, a teacher from a French school that was razed.
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"The way it ended here, I wouldn’t come back here even if they offered me a new job," he said at the airport, as he waited for a flight with his wife and three small children.
More than 2,200 French and other foreign nationals have been sheltering in French and U.N. bases in Abidjan, chased from their homes by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo. French military sources said about 1,200 wanted to leave the country.
There are 14,000-15,000 French citizens in Ivory Coast, including around 8,000 who have dual nationality.
Crowd violence, in which at least 30 demonstrators have been killed, exploded on Saturday when the French army destroyed most of the West African nation’s small air force after an Ivorian jet had bombed a French base.
The 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.
People queuing in the airport 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. There was an air of sadness but also of relief.
NEW PROTESTS
The riots have blocked cocoa exports, vital for a country which grows more than 40 percent of the world’s cocoa beans, and inflamed simmering ethnic tensions in a major cocoa town.
The United Nations said on Tuesday it may remove some non-essential staff from Ivory Coast, where there are nearly 800 people employed by U.N. and sister agencies. The plans would not affect more than 6,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the country.
In Abidjan, several small clusters of youths draped in national flags ran to join anti-French protesters outside the state television building, singing the national anthem. Others manned checkpoints blocking roads with rocks and pieces of wood.
"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 centre.
Some youths brandished sticks as if they were machineguns.
DOWNWARD SLIDE
At least 10 demonstrators were killed and hundreds injured on Tuesday when bursts of gunfire ripped into a crowd outside Abidjan’s showpiece Hotel Ivoire, which was under the control of French soldiers at the time. It remained unclear who had fired.
Independent of Paris since 1960 and made prosperous by its cocoa harvests, Ivory Coast has been on a downward slide since a military coup in 1999 tarnished its reputation as an economic motor in an otherwise poor region.
Gbagbo won power in disputed polls a year later.
Since the failed coup the country of 17 million has been cut in two with more than 10,000 French and U.N. 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 in talks and the stalemate remains.
On Tuesday, South African President Thabo Mbeki met Gbagbo. He said the president was committed to peace and arranged talks with opposition leaders in South Africa for later this week.
France negotiated at the United Nations in New York to get approval for sanctions against Ivory Coast. Security Council members reached broad agreement on an arms embargo, and a travel ban and asset freezes for some individuals.
