French Shoot Down Ivory Coast Warplanes
29 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By PAULINE BAX, Associated Press Writer
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - French peacekeepers shot down two Ivory Coast warplanes and a military helicopter Saturday after the aircraft bombed their position, killing a French soldier and wounding 20 others, a U.N. military spokesman said.
AP Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: Ivory Coast Unrest
The clash threatened to bring a serious escalation in Ivory Coast's renewed civil war and to drag in French and U.N. peacekeeping forces, some of whom are deployed in a buffer zone dividing the government-held south and the rebel-controlled north.
The strike was the latest government bombing run since hard-line Ivory Coast army commanders broke a more than year-old cease-fire on Thursday, launching launched airstrikes on rebel positions in the north.
At 1:30 p.m., the warplanes struck French positions at Brobo, near the rebel-held town of Bouake, U.N. military spokesman Philippe Moreux said. "As a response, the French shot down two Sukhoi 25s and one MI-24 helicopter," Moreux said.
A U.N. civilian spokesman, Jean Victor Nkolo, said one French soldier was killed and 20 other French soldiers were injured.
Col. Gerard Dubois, a French military spokesman in Paris, confirmed that two Sukhoi 25 aircraft had opened attack on French positions. French troops shot down the planes. There were "several victims" among the French forces, Dubois said, adding that it was too early for the French to establish a complete tally of dead or injured.
France and the United Nations (news - web sites) have about 10,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, a former French colony.
Ivory Coast military commanders have vowed to retake the north, held by rebels since the September 2002 start of the war in the world's top cocoa producer.
A U.N. military spokesman said the 6,200-strong U.N. force in Ivory Coast lacked the manpower to guard all routes into the rebel north. "It's not impossible for the forces to go around our post" to reach rebel strongholds, spokesman Philippe Moreux said. "We are only on the main road."
There were no immediate reports of new clashes on the ground Saturday.
Fearing a spread of the fighting, the France-based relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Border, said Saturday it was evacuating some staff from its hospital in the western town of Danane, about 20 miles from Ivory Coast's border with Liberia (news - web sites). The west saw some of the most brutal attacks of the war.
"We are very worried," the aid group's spokeswoman Vanessa van Schoor said. "We really hope that the hospital will not be attacked. We still have patients inside. The population of Danane has suffered a great deal already" in the war.
Van Schoor said the hospital would remain functioning. She declined to say how many staffers were being brought out or where they were being taken.
Ivory Coast's war killed thousands and uprooted more than 1 million, threatening efforts by neighboring countries â †Sierra Leone and Liberia â †to recover from their own vicious civil wars of the 1990s.
Last year's peace deals, brokered under international pressure, ended major fighting but an agreed-upon power-sharing government has never taken hold.
The U.N. Security Council â †which has poured billions of dollars and thousands of peace troops into West and Central Africa to support peace accords â †expressed alarm at the renewed fighting, as have France, the United States and others.
Nigerian President Olosegun Obasanjo, current president of the African Union, opened talks with regional leaders Saturday at his farm on the outskirts of Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, to look for a way out of the crisis.
Senior African Union officials were among those attending. Remi Oyo, Obasanjo's spokeswoman, declined to say if Ivory Coast government or rebel representatives would take part.
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Associated Press writers Parfait Kouassi in Abidjan and Daniel Balint-Kurti in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.
29 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By PAULINE BAX, Associated Press Writer
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - French peacekeepers shot down two Ivory Coast warplanes and a military helicopter Saturday after the aircraft bombed their position, killing a French soldier and wounding 20 others, a U.N. military spokesman said.
AP Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: Ivory Coast Unrest
The clash threatened to bring a serious escalation in Ivory Coast's renewed civil war and to drag in French and U.N. peacekeeping forces, some of whom are deployed in a buffer zone dividing the government-held south and the rebel-controlled north.
The strike was the latest government bombing run since hard-line Ivory Coast army commanders broke a more than year-old cease-fire on Thursday, launching launched airstrikes on rebel positions in the north.
At 1:30 p.m., the warplanes struck French positions at Brobo, near the rebel-held town of Bouake, U.N. military spokesman Philippe Moreux said. "As a response, the French shot down two Sukhoi 25s and one MI-24 helicopter," Moreux said.
A U.N. civilian spokesman, Jean Victor Nkolo, said one French soldier was killed and 20 other French soldiers were injured.
Col. Gerard Dubois, a French military spokesman in Paris, confirmed that two Sukhoi 25 aircraft had opened attack on French positions. French troops shot down the planes. There were "several victims" among the French forces, Dubois said, adding that it was too early for the French to establish a complete tally of dead or injured.
France and the United Nations (news - web sites) have about 10,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, a former French colony.
Ivory Coast military commanders have vowed to retake the north, held by rebels since the September 2002 start of the war in the world's top cocoa producer.
A U.N. military spokesman said the 6,200-strong U.N. force in Ivory Coast lacked the manpower to guard all routes into the rebel north. "It's not impossible for the forces to go around our post" to reach rebel strongholds, spokesman Philippe Moreux said. "We are only on the main road."
There were no immediate reports of new clashes on the ground Saturday.
Fearing a spread of the fighting, the France-based relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Border, said Saturday it was evacuating some staff from its hospital in the western town of Danane, about 20 miles from Ivory Coast's border with Liberia (news - web sites). The west saw some of the most brutal attacks of the war.
"We are very worried," the aid group's spokeswoman Vanessa van Schoor said. "We really hope that the hospital will not be attacked. We still have patients inside. The population of Danane has suffered a great deal already" in the war.
Van Schoor said the hospital would remain functioning. She declined to say how many staffers were being brought out or where they were being taken.
Ivory Coast's war killed thousands and uprooted more than 1 million, threatening efforts by neighboring countries â †Sierra Leone and Liberia â †to recover from their own vicious civil wars of the 1990s.
Last year's peace deals, brokered under international pressure, ended major fighting but an agreed-upon power-sharing government has never taken hold.
The U.N. Security Council â †which has poured billions of dollars and thousands of peace troops into West and Central Africa to support peace accords â †expressed alarm at the renewed fighting, as have France, the United States and others.
Nigerian President Olosegun Obasanjo, current president of the African Union, opened talks with regional leaders Saturday at his farm on the outskirts of Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, to look for a way out of the crisis.
Senior African Union officials were among those attending. Remi Oyo, Obasanjo's spokeswoman, declined to say if Ivory Coast government or rebel representatives would take part.
___
Associated Press writers Parfait Kouassi in Abidjan and Daniel Balint-Kurti in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.