Mob storms Abidjan airport
 
Somini Sengupta/NYT The New York Times
Saturday, February 1, 2003
French trying to flee Ivory Coast are harassed
 
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast Ratcheting up anti-foreigner aggression here in what was once West Africa's cosmopolitan hub, several hundred young Ivorians stormed the international airport Friday morning, harassing French citizens as they tried to flee the country. They hurled stones at the French soldiers charged with protecting them.
.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Paris has urged all citizens "whose presence is not essential" to leave the country. Friday, an estimated 800 French citizens left Ivory Coast, once the jewel in the French imperial crown, on commercial flights and chartered planes.
.
French citizens remaining here have been advised by their embassy to stay indoors.
.
France has come under attack by Ivorian government loyalists because of a French-brokered peace deal designed to end a civil war that has rent this country for four months.
.
The peace accord calls for power-sharing between the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, elected in 2000, and the rebels, who have tried to unseat him since launching a failed coup last September. Gbagbo's supporters accuse the French of supporting the rebels, who control the north, and forcing their president, who controls the south, to agree to the agreement. They vow to never let the rebels have a piece of their country. A mass demonstration was planned for Saturday.
.
Friday's attacks on the French - actually on anyone who was white - was among the most severe to date. Protesters, draped in Ivorian colors and holding hand-made placards denouncing the French, snatched luggage from a few passengers and broke car windows in the airport parking lot. A smaller group rushed onto the tarmac, physically trying to prevent planes from taking off, according to a French Army spokesman.
.
Two French soldiers were injured by the stone-throwing mob, but not seriously. There were no civilian injuries. Nor were there reports of any arrests.
.
The three days of riots that followed the news of the peace deal last weekend left French schools, businesses as well as the French Embassy torched, ransacked or scarred by graffiti.
.
French citizens were pulled out of their cars on the roads, and some of their homes were raided. But it has been Ivorians and other Africans who have borne the most painful toll of this war. Here in government-controlled Abidjan, a once calm and prosperous port city with a reputation for fine restaurants, immigrants from other West African countries have been attacked, particularly those from Burkina Faso, Mali and Liberia. They are accused of supporting insurgents in the north and west.
.
Meanwhile, thousands of Ivorians have fled rebel-held areas; their houses have been burned and looted. The United Nations estimates that the conflict has displaced more than a million people.
.
The doors to the Felix Houphouet-Boigny International Airport were blocked by three armored personnel carriers. Dozens of French soldiers faced a livid crowd, with machine guns at the ready. Would-be travelers were trapped inside.
.
The road to the airport was blocked by nearly a dozen French armored vehicles, including a light tank. An army spokesman said also that two helicopters had been deployed. The siege of the airport began at 8 a.m., around the time passengers for the 10:20 Air France flight to Paris would be checking in. It lasted roughly five hours. French soldiers ceded control of the airport to the Ivorian Army by mid-afternoon, leaving an unspecified number of paramilitary gendarmes.
.
Three of the 14 scheduled flights Friday were canceled. It was unclear whether the Air France flight from Paris would land here Saturday morning. The Ivorian Army spokesman, Jules Yao Yao, said the incident did not warrant a reinforcement of troops at the airport.
.
Eugene Djue, president of the Patriotic Union for the Total Liberation of Ivory Coast, an umbrella group that called the demonstration, vowed to never accept the peace deal, which calls for a national unity government headed by Prime Minister Seydou Diarra.
International National/ N.Y. Politics Business Technology Sports NYTimes.com
< < Back to Start of Article
  Print Article Text Larger Text Small Single Column Multi Column