Eighteen black-clad assailants and one Ivorian soldier were killed in overnight gunbattles in the heart of the main Côte d’Ivoire city of Abidjan, Defence Minister Rene Amani said on Friday.
Simultaneous attacks in three areas around the economic capital have cast a pall on efforts to end a 14-month political and military crisis that has crippled the West African powerhouse, sending shockwaves throughout the region.
”The situation is under control,” Amani said over national television, whose headquarters in the upmarket Cocody district were thought to have been a target of the attacks by the as-yet unknown band of assailants.
A wide-ranging investigation has been launched, with a special focus on extracting information from assailants taken into custody during the overnight fighting, the bloodiest clashes in recent months in Abidjan since a ceasefire was declared in July to end a civil war that boiled over from a failed coup attempt in September 2002.
”People should go about their business,” Amani said, stressing the government’s ”determination” to ”prevent the recent events from standing in the way of peace and national reconciliation”.
The clashes came hours after rebel and military chiefs agreed they would begin on Saturday to store weapons and tear down roadblocks.
The two sides, meeting again on Friday in Abidjan, have agreed to store the bulk of their weapons over a 12-day period and to continue to pull back heavy weaponry from along the 640km ceasefire line that has since July run from east to west through the heart of the world’s top cocoa producer. — Sapa-AFP