Residents in two rebel-held cities awoke to a fraught calm on Sunday, but fear and confusion were running high after a night of shooting and amid threats of a government assault to oust those behind this West African nation’s bloodiest military uprising.
Loyalist troops were seen rushing toward the rebel-held towns from the commercial capital Abidjan on Saturday, and Prime Minister Affi Nguessan warned of an imminent attack.
There were also ominous signs that Thursday’s failed attempt to oust President Laurent Gbagbo was morphing into an ethnic conflict.
Rebels still control the northern opposition stronghold of Korhogo and the central town of Boauke, 350 kilometres north of Abidjan. There have also been reports that they have occupied other towns in the northern region.
In Bouake, residents said there was sporadic shooting until about 5 am, when a fragile calm returned.
”I was able to get a wink of sleep because of the shooting,” said one man, who gave his name only as Lamine.
”It was very strong, and every time you felt the ground was trembling,” he said.
”Now, it is calm and the women have gone to the market to try to find some food,” he said, adding that he was not sure if there had been a clash with government forces.
France said on Sunday it had sent reinforcements to protect French citizens and the international community in its former colony. ”The French armed forces present in Ivory Coast are closely watching the security problems of French nationals in Abidjan, as well as in the rest of the country,” a statement from the army chief of staff in Paris said. It gave no further details on the size of the reinforcements.
France already has around 600 troops based in Abidjan, at a fortified military base on the outskirts of the city.
State television said on Saturday that around 270 people had already been killed in the fighting, which began before dawn on Thursday when insurgents, apparently including hundreds of recently sacked soldiers, launched coordinated attacks on military installations, government sites, and Cabinet ministers’ houses in five cities and towns.
Loyalist forces quelled the uprising in Abidjan, but scores of government forces were killed, including a Cabinet minister, senior military officers and dozens of paramilitary police.
Paramilitary police shot and killed the deposed junta chief whom the government accuses in the coup attempt, General Robert Guei.
Paramilitary police also killed his wife, son and grandchildren. A security official in neighboring Burkina Faso, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday that rebels had attacked and were now controlling other northern cities, including Katiola, Ferkessedougou and Ouangolodougou, on the border with Burkina Faso.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim. The official said the rebels wanted to prevent loyalist forces from using air strips to ferry troops to the region.
In Abidjan, paramilitary police set fire to a mainly Muslim shanty town on Saturday – the rising smoke an ominous sign that the latest bloodletting was unleashing deadly ethnic, political and religious hatreds in what was once one of West Africa’s most stable and prosperous nations.
Frightened residents – many workers from Burkina Faso and other Muslim countries to the north, and frequent targets of attacks in Ivory Coast’s predominantly Christian south – said paramilitary police were setting fire to makeshift shacks, beating the occupants, and leading many away.
Despairing residents sat with belongings piled beside them as flames destroyed their homes. Newly homeless people pushed carts piled with mattresses, suitcases, and televisions along, seeking shelter elsewhere.
Some residents said the paramilitary police told them they needed to clear the area because insurgents had taken refuge there. The neighborhood is near a paramilitary base. The government has since ordered security forces not to attack foreigners.
On Sunday, a senior official from opposition leader Alassane Dramane Ouattara’s party, said government forces had set fire to Ouattara’s house in the early hours of the morning.
Ouattara, who draws his support from the mainly Muslim north, has fled to the French embassy, fearing he would be blamed for the coup attempt. His house had already been looted by government forces and one of his aides shot dead, a party official said on Friday.
Simmering tensions have regularly exploded between Gbagbo, who draws his support from the mainly Christian south and west, and Ouattara’s backers. Hundreds have previously been killed in street battles.
In Korhogo, rebels told residents of the largely Muslim city that the government had recruited Angolan soldiers to ”kill northerners,” and urged young men to take up arms and join them. Korhogo was calm on Sunday morning.
Despite the troop movements, Nguessan held out the option of talks, saying the government would be prepared to negotiate with the insurgents if they laid down their weapons.
In an interview on state television on Saturday, the prime minister said the government was eager to avoid a bloodbath. ”It is in order to avoid this kind of serious consequence that we are inviting these people to put down their guns,” he said.
This latest coup attempt shattered efforts to restore stability to once-tranquil Ivory Coast after its first-ever coup in 1999. The mayhem in Ivory Coast – the world’s largest cocoa producer, and still an economic anchor in West Africa – raised fears that the nation was falling into the endemic violence that has ravaged neighbors Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Gbagbo hinted at foreign involvement in the uprising, but did not name any countries.
A security official in Burkina Faso said that Angolan troops who allegedly arrived in Abidjan on Friday had been seen heading to Bouake in small groups, to help reinforce government troops. The official declined to be identified.
Angolan government officials have denied any involvement and the Ivorian government has said it did not ask for support.
Burkina Faso, which has strained relations with its southern neighbor, has beefed up security at the border with hundreds of new soldiers since the attempted coup.
Ivory Coast officials have claimed the rebels included Liberian, Malian and Burkina Faso nationals. – Sapa-AP