Ivory Coast Westerners evacuated

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Angry crowds chanted, "All whites out!" as Western nations launched one of the largest evacuations of Africa's postindependence era Wednesday. French soldiers in boats plucked trapped countrymen from the banks of lagoons.

Convoys shuttled foreigners to the airport, passing through "very virulent" crowds of loyalist youths on a route littered with burned vehicles and an abandoned roadblocks of smoldering tires, U.N. spokesman Philippe Moreux said.

France, the United States and other nations ordered commercial jets to fly out thousands of foreigners after attacks on civilians and peacekeepers. Violence erupted after government forces renewed attacks on rebels, ending a more than one-year cease-fire in the country's civil war.

Nine French peacekeepers and an American civilian died in a government air attack late last week, prompting the French to destroy Ivory Coast's tiny air force.

The retaliation sparked violence by loyalist youths, who took to the streets waving machetes, iron bars and clubs and attacking white expatriates.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy and others sent escorts into the city, fetching Americans, Canadians, Spaniards and others.

Ivory Coast's state TV alternately appealed for calm and for a mass uprising against the French, the country's former colonial rulers. French citizens stranded on lagoons, which dot the capital, were pulled to safety by French soldiers in boats.

More Americans are expected in Ghana today. Only a few hundred Americans remain in Ivory Coast, many of them missionaries and aid workers.

By late afternoon, much of Ivory Coast's largest city was quiet - the first break from violence since Saturday.

French President Jacques Chirac sternly demanded that President Laurent Gbagbo (pronounced BAHG-boh) rein in thousands of his hard-line supporters, who brought him to power in 2000 and are now leading the anti-French street violence.

At the United Nations, France revised a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday to give Ivory Coast more time to resurrect a peace process with northern rebels or face an arms embargo and other sanctions, diplomats said. The decision to push back the deadline from Dec. 1 to Dec. 10 was made at the request of the United States.

World and national headlines

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright