Rebels holding the north of Côte d’Ivoire say they are gearing up for an imminent return to hostilities in the divided and tense West African state following an attack last month on one of their positions.
Humanitarian workers said, meanwhile, that the February 28 attack at Logouale, in the restive west of the world’s top cocoa producer, has sent as many as 15 000 people in the area fleeing in the latest population shift evoked by rising tensions in the former regional powerhouse.
In a statement received late on Thursday by AFP, the rebel New Forces said that according to information they have obtained, ”the agitation among the armed militias is a prelude to an imminent reprise of hostilities across the front lines”.
”We are warning anyone who thinks they can cross the confidence zone to attack our positions that this time we will not only defend ourselves but will chase the enemy back to their last position,” it said. The ”confidence zone” is ceasefire-line territory monitored by French and United Nations peacekeepers.
Hundreds of armed militants, many of whom were admitted members of the hard-line Young Patriots militia close to President Laurent Gbagbo, crept through forest thicket to Loguale on February 28 to attack the rebel-held town.
They were repelled by the rebels and a contingent of UN Bangladeshi peacekeepers, who took more than 80 of the militants into custody. About 30 people were reportedly killed, according to the rebels.
A little-known group known as Miloci, led by evangelist Pastor Gammi, claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said was the first in an expected series of aggressions to liberate zones that have been under rebel control since September 2002, when a failed coup sparked a low-level civil war.
The rebels, blasting the international community for its failure to react in a timely manner to the ”massive deployment of troops and military equipment” by the government on the front lines, have declared all mediation in the two-year-old crisis over.
Worried about the fates of the more than 1,5-million citizens living in the west, many of whom have been caught in the crossfire of the xenophobic violence that has strafed the verdant coffee and cocoa plantations since the crisis began, the UN sounded an alarm on Thursday.
”The situation is critical, as in the last several days a series of attacks, counterattacks and reprisals have occurred between the local population and the economic migrants in the region,” warned Besida Towne, head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).
As many as 15 000 people have fled their homes in the confidence zone dividing the rebel north from the government south to arrive in the government-held town of Duekoue, she said, where sparse supplies of clean water and food are unlikely to be stretched to accommodate the influx of panicked arrivals.
The rebel statement capped a week of stories circulating in the Abidjan media and around the region about an expected reprise of hostilities targeting the west, where much of the heaviest fighting during the civil war occurred and which is a tinderbox for inter-ethnic clashes.
Reports from southern Guinea suggest that aircraft belonging to Gbagbo are moving into position for an attack on the north, while Liberian mercenaries have said in Monrovia that they are being recruited to cross the border on foot to join an advance on rebel positions in the west.
About 300 Liberians were among those who waged the attack on Loguale, according to sources in Monrovia, which one diplomat likened to a ”trial balloon” for a multifront assault on the west.
Britain’s ambassador David Coates released a statement on Thursday advising British nationals to ”consider carefully whether [their] presence in [Côte d’Ivoire] is essential” and to weigh the benefits of leaving before hostilities resume as expected.
”I am well aware that the streets of Abidjan and elsewhere in [Côte d’Ivoire] remain very calm for most of the time. It is easy to let this lull one into a false sense of security.” — Sapa-AFP