The chaos afflicting Côte d’Ivoire took a new turn on Thursday when it emerged that 4 000 prisoners in the country’s largest jail had escaped through the sewers.
Many of the prisoners, including murderers and robbers, are thought to have headed to the capital, Abidjan, adding to the tension that has gripped the country during recent violence that has left more than 30 dead and 1Â 000 injured.
An expatriate exodus from the west African country gathered pace, as France, the former colonial power, airlifted hundreds more of its nationals on jumbo jet shuttles out of the country. Spain also evacuated dozens of its citizens and the international airport was still crowded on Thursday with foreigners seeking safe passage.
A French official has said that between 4Â 000 and 8Â 000 of its 14Â 000 citizens in the country want to leave, making this one of the largest evacuations from post-colonial Africa.
A French army spokesperson said a number of European women were raped during the mob rioting that targeted the French community over the weekend.
”It is confirmed. The facts have been checked and we won’t make any comment because it is so serious,” French army spokesperson Henry Aussavy said.
On Thursday the British defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, said the government had deployed 300 soldiers, including a company of Gurkhas, to evacuate British nationals.
About 100 Gurkhas have flown to neighbouring Ghana on ”immediate notice” to help with the evacuation, he told MPs.
A British military reconnaissance team has been deployed in Abidjan to evacuate the 400 UK nationals and others who are entitled to British protection, Hoon said.
The operation will also involve RAF transport aircraft; and in what the defence secretary called an ”additional contingency”, the Ministry of Defence has ordered the landing ship HMS Albion to Côte d’Ivoire. More troops are on standby if needed.
”We would expect the operation to last days, not weeks,” Hoon said.
An uneasy calm prevailed in Abidjan on Thursday after five days of demonstrations which pitted French forces against the Jeunes Patriots, the youth militia of President Laurent Gbagbo.
The recent descent into bloodshed has been dispiriting given that Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading cocoa producer, had been a stable, relatively prosperous African success story until a 1999 coup ignited ethnic and religious tension.
Simmering violence suddenly exploded last Saturday when Côte d’Ivoire warplanes that had been attacking rebels in the north killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike.
The strike was part of a three-day series of air attacks, in violation of a ceasefire in the country’s civil war that had been in force for more than a year.
In response, France wiped out the country’s newly built-up airforce on the ground within hours, prompting a violent uprising by loyalist youths, who took to the streets waving machetes, iron bars and clubs. France’s prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, dismissed protests from the Ivorian president, saying that ”you do not kill French soldiers with impunity”.
Some shops reopened in Abidjan on Thursday and the city’s bright orange taxis returned to work, according to residents. The country’s crucial cocoa exports also started to resume. Trucks carrying cocoa beans unloaded at the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro, which had been closed by the mob violence.
City workers were busy clearing Abidjan’s streets of burned-out vehicles and makeshift roadblocks erected during the rioting. But there was little sign of any effort to track down the 4Â 000 escaped prisoners.
”The prisoners escaped through the sewage system — they made a hole,” said a justice ministry official who refused to give his name. ”They left this weekend in little groups.”
Côte d’Ivoire officials have given different accounts of the prison breakout, with the security minister, Martin Bleuo, saying it started when prisoners rioted after the water was cut off for five days. The unrest killed seven people.
”There is not much left in the prison,” the justice ministry official said yesterday.
The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, began meetings on Thursday in Pretoria with representatives of Côte d’Ivoire’s opposition to try to resolve the country’s civil war.
He met the the exiled Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Outtara, the rebel leader Guillaume Soro, and the head of an alliance of opposition parties, Alphonse Djedje Mady, said Mbeki’s spokesperson, Bheki Khumalo.
”He will meet with each of the delegations individually,” Khumalo said.
Mbeki had already met Gbagbo on an African Union-mandated trip to the former French colony this week.
Before starting the talks Mbeki said: ”I am quite sure we will make progress. That I’m sure about.” – Guardian Unlimited