Conflict-torn Ivory Coast slid further on Tuesday towards war as about 3 000 frenzied youths responded to a call to take up arms against rebels holding half the country and Belgium and Britain asked their citizens to leave immediately.
”Excited” young men aged between 20 and 26 thronged the defence ministry in the main city of Abidjan following a government call for voluntary enlistment in the national forces to crush the nearly three-month-old rebellion.
Many wore Ivorian tricolour bandanas, others had the flag emblazoned on T-shirts bearing messages such as ”My country will be the victor!”
They shouted brave slogans — ”We want uniforms,” ”We are ready to go to the front” and ”Assailants be prepared for a tough time” — and said they were ready to sacrifice their lives.
The unruly crowd was high on enthusiasm but low on discipline — a fact pointed out to them by Lieutenant-Colonel Jules Yao Yao, the representative for the Ivorian chief of staff.
”The army means discipline,” he said. ”We cannot send indisciplined young men to fight to the death.” Yao Yao told the volunteers that the enlistment process would start on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the British embassy in Abidjan issued a ”final”
warning to its citizens to leave.
A communique said: ”You are advised to leave Cote d’Ivoire
immediately as commercial air services are still available.”
”This is a final warning. It may not be possible to arrange any subsequent evacuation by civil or military means” and added that afterwards ”British consular protection may not be available.”
The Belgian foreign ministry on Tuesday also advised all citizens to leave citing ”growing instability in the west, centre and east” of the country.
”In case of a deterioration in the situation, regular air
services could be severely undermined,” it said.
Five European Union countries — Belgium, Britain, the
Netherlands, Portugal and Spain had earlier issued advisories to their citizens. The United States on September 26 urged nationals to leave Ivory Coast.
French military sources meanwhile quoted the Ivorian military as saying that they had on Monday re-taken the town of Blolekin in western Ivory Coast near the Liberian border.
International observers fear that the Ivorian conflict, which began on September 19, could deteriorate rapidly.
On Monday, embattled President Laurent Gbagbo held one-to-one talks with his Togolese counterpart Gnassingbe Eyadema, who has been mandated by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) bloc to resolve the insurgency.
The conflict, which has already claimed hundreds of lives, has been complicated by last week’s discovery of two mass graves thought to contain the bodies of nearly 200 victims.
The Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI) rebels, the group that began the uprising, warned on Monday it would resume hostilities if ”nothing concrete” was done by midnight following last week’s discovery of a mass grave in the country’s west.
Although the rebels have confirmed the existence of a mass grave in Bouake, which has served as their headquarters since the start of the uprising, they said it contained bodies of fighters — both rebel and government troops — killed in battle.
The other grave in the western village of Monoko-Zohi was filled with victims who were looted and then executed by government troops when they briefly took the hamlet, the rebels claimed.
Ivory Coast’s former colonial ruler France on Tuesday demanded an ”international investigation establish responsibilities in incontestable fashion” on those behind the massacres and said they should be punished.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees meanwhile lodged a protest in Geneva after a ferry boat it used to take Liberian nationals back to their country from western Ivory Coast was destroyed by the Ivorian army.
”We were told that the ferry was destroyed to prevent potential future intrusion of rebels into Ivory Coast,” representative Kris Janowski said.
Liberia closed its border with Ivory Coast last week but said it would let in refugees fleeing the conflict. – Sapa-AFP