West Africans threatened

West African shop owners in central Abidjan pulled down shutters and fled on Tuesday after receiving threats from Ivorian vigilantes, according to witnesses and news reports. They targeted mostly traders from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger. Most of them, located in Abidjan’s business district called Le Plateau, closed their shops and stalls in compliance with the vigilante’s demand. “However, Guineans [who refused to comply] had their property damaged,” a West African market trader told IRIN on Wednesday. “Today, there has been no trouble.” Tuesday’s mob action followed Ivorian government allegation that the nationals of neighbouring countries took part in Sunday’s botched coup to overthrow the government. Business activity slowed considerably in the high density Abidjan neighbourhood of Treichville, where Senegalese car parts dealers operate. Also in the outlying suburb of Port-Bouet, traders closed businesses under threat from university students at a nearby halls of residence. In a middle-income area of Cocody, a handful of gendarme troops persuaded a band of about 60 youth to stop searching out non-Ivorian national. The youths had been stopping taxis and demanding passenger identity documents from passengers. “Non-Ivorians out, the UN out ECOWAS out,” one youth shouted. ECOWAS is the Economic Community of West African States of which Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and 10 other countries are members. Community citizens have a right of residence and to establishment in each others’ countries. Security forces have been searching pedestrians and cars in parts of the city since Tuesday. In the Deux Plateau neighbourhood where the armed forces chief of staff Brig-Gen Matthias Doue lives, armed troops at both ends of a street near his home searched diplomatic cars entering the vicinity. “We would even search the president’s car here,” one soldier said.