IVORY COAST: People were back on the streets of Abidjan after three days of violent protests.

Record ID: 182601
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  • Title: IVORY COAST: People were back on the streets of Abidjan after three days of violent protests.
  • Date: 19th January 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF LORRY TRAVELLING TOWARDS BUSINESS CENTRE
  • Embargoed: 3rd February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA891TIA8D771JATLN1PJFI7Q3M
  • Story Text: After three days of violent protests in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan, there were signs on Thursday (January 19) that some shops and market stalls were reopening and some traffic was circulating in parts of the debris-strewn city, Ivory Coast's economic capital and main cocoa exporting port.
    Pro-government protesters were still manning roadblocks despite an appeal from President Laurent Gbagbo for them to end a wave of anti-U.N. riots.
    After crisis talks late on Wednesday, Gbagbo and African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo appealed to Ivorians to halt the riots, which erupted after foreign mediators, the GTI, recommended that the mandate of the national parliament should not be renewed.
    Angry government supporters, who besieged U.N. bases across the south, denounced this as foreign meddling but Gbagbo and Obasanjo, the Nigerian president, said in their public statement this recommendation was not binding and had no legal weight.
    Hundreds of young Gbagbo loyalists clamouring for U.N. and French peacekeeping troops to leave Ivory Coast have attacked U.N. bases, residences and vehicles with petrol bombs and stones across the government-controlled south since Monday.
    Rebels have held the north of the world's top cocoa grower since a 2002 civil war and the U.N. and foreign mediators have been struggling to implement a peace plan that foresees disarmament and presidential elections by the end of October.
    Four protesters were killed on Wednesday (January 18) when government supporters stormed one U.N. base in the west, forcing U.N. peacekeepers to open fire and then evacuate, U.N. officials said. Ivorian state media said five were killed.
    The U.N. Security Council planned to meet on Thursday to discuss Ivory Coast for the second time in a week and was expected to give a final green light to sanctions on government or rebel leaders blocking the peace process, council diplomats said.
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