IVORY COAST Evacuations, peace talks continue

Officials said 4,000 prisoners escaped during the violence over the weekend.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
DAKAR, Senegal -- France evacuated more of its citizens from Ivory Coast on Thursday after days of anti-French violence, and opposition leaders from the West African country met with South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is trying to mediate a new peace deal.
Ivory Coast was calmer after waves of rioting and looting that broke out Saturday. Government ministers called on citizens to go back to work. Some shops reopened and taxis were back on the streets.
The country's president, Laurent Gbagbo, strongly criticized France's handling of the crisis. Government forces who have been attacking rebels in the north had bombed French peacekeepers Saturday, killing nine of them and an American aid worker.
France retaliated by destroying the small Ivory Coast air force, undermining the government's new thrust to defeat the rebels. Anti-French riots swept the country, with angry mobs targeting French businesses and citizens. Dozens died, according to Ivorian officials and hundreds were injured in the violence.
Divisions
Civil war broke out in 2002 and Ivory Coast is now divided between northern rebels and southern loyalists, with peacekeepers arrayed in between. Before the latest riots, anti-French sentiment had focused on the role of French forces as peacekeepers. Many people in the south believe that the French were responsible for stopping government forces from defeating the rebels.
France has about 4,000 troops in the country and the United Nations has about 6,000 peacekeepers under a separate mandate to monitor a cease-fire between the government and rebels. The U.N. peacekeepers come from 48 countries; nearly half are from Bangladesh.
An estimated 15,000 French lived in Ivory Coast, a former French colony that is a major cocoa producer and for decades was one of the most stable and prosperous countries in West Africa. The French military has flown more than 1,000 civilians out of the country in recent days, and its officials say thousands more want to leave.
The British military is sending 300 troops and a warship to Ghana to evacuate about 400 British residents from Ivory Coast. Several other Western countries and the United Nations also organized evacuations.
Problems
The International Committee for the Red Cross and U.N. agencies warned that many people in the north and west regions were suffering because water supply and power have been cut since the crisis began.
Ivory Coast officials also confirmed Thursday that 4,000 prisoners escaped during the violence over the weekend.
Ivorian opposition leaders flew to Pretoria, South Africa, for talks with Mbeki, who had traveled to Ivory Coast and met with Gbagbo. Mbeki, who was given the mandate by the African Union to organize negotiations, announced after meeting with Gbagbo that the Ivorian leader was committed to a peace deal.