IVORY COAST Rescue efforts begin to help trapped citizens

Thousands of French have expressed a desire to leave.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- France and the United Nations began evacuating thousands of French and other expatriates today trapped at U.N. offices and a French military base amid days of anti-foreigner rampages in Ivory Coast's largest city, French and U.N. officials said.
France alone expected to fly out between 4,000 to 8,000 of its citizens from across Ivory Coast -- potentially the majority of the 14,000 French still in the former French colony, a French official said.
"It is on a voluntary basis. We are not going to evacuate all our French citizens because they are too many," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official said between 4,000 and 8,000 French have expressed a desire to leave, either temporarily or for good.
Evacuations started today with a convoy of 40 U.N. personnel, U.N. spokesman Philippe Mathieu said.
The 40 were among more than 1,000 expatriates who have holed up in a U.N. headquarters amid four days of looting and attacks, Mathieu said.
More than 1,600 other foreigners who have taken refuge in a French military base in Abidjan are to be flown out. They included 985 French and citizens of 42 other countries, the French said.
Airstrike
Violence erupted in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's economic powerhouse, on Saturday after Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on the rebel-held north.
France wiped out the nation's newly built-up air force on the tarmac in retaliation, sparking a violent anti-French uprising of looting, burning and attacks by loyalist youths. The turmoil has claimed at least 27 lives and wounded more than 900, with no deaths reported among expatriates.
Roadblock
Heavily armed French forces with three armored vehicles manned a roadblock on the way to Ivory Coast's international airport, which is controlled by the French military. It was reopening today for what were expected to be days of flights out.
Abandoned roadblocks of burned tires and burned vehicles lined the route to the airport.
Mathieu, speaking to The Associated Press by telephone as he rode in the U.N. convoy, ended the interview abruptly, saying he was passing through a crowd of loyalist youth.
Three Boeings with space for 250 people each would run what were expected to be days of shuttles to Paris and to the Senegalese capital, Dakar, French officials said.
At least two other countries, Spain and Belgium, sent military planes that were on standby in the region today if needed to evacuate their nationals.
As the evacuations began, South African President Thabo Mbeki invited representatives of Ivory Coast's government and rebels to peace talks there meant to end the violence.