West remains volatile

The situation in western Cote d'Ivoire remains volatile despite the presence of French and loyalist troops, according to reports from news organisations and humanitarian sources, which also say that essential services are not functioning in parts of the area. "At present, the movement of people is very limited" in the west, including the towns of Duekoue and Guiglo - near the border with Liberia - the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday in its latest weekly emergency update. It added: "There is no electricity, water or telephone connection, and hospitals, banks and schools are closed". Numerous military and civil check points had been set up all along major roads to and from the country's capital, Yamoussoukro - about 220 km north of Abidjan - with increasing reports of harassment and bribery of civilians. WFP said two assessment missions were carried out last week to Didievi, northeast of Yamoussoukro, and to Bediala and Zuenoula, northwest of the capital. It reported that out of 23,000 registered internally displaced persons (IDPs) transiting through the Didievi area, 8,000 had settled with families in over 100 villages around the town while the others kept on moving southward. In Bediala, WFP said, several thousand IDPs had passed through without being registered by authorities. Only some 400 had settled with host families. The agency was waiting for the local authorities to update registers and forward reliable figures for eventual emergency food assistance. Meanwhile, at least one civilian was killed and many others injured when loyalist forces aboard a helicopter attacked the rebel-held western village of Pelezi, AFP quoted the French military as saying on Friday. Shots from an Mi-24 helicopter killed one person and injured several civilians, the spokesman of the French forces in Cote d'Ivoire was reported as saying by AFP. Pelezi, which is in the hands of the main rebel group, the Mouvement Patriotique de Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI), is about 360 km northwest of Abidjan. In another development, rebels of the Mouvement Populaire Ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO) who met on Monday with French troops deployed in the western town of Duekoue on Monday said an exchange of fire between the two sides on Sunday was a mistake, AFP reported. "This meeting enabled them to clarify their position and to inform us of their mistake. They didn't intend to attack us," the French military spokesman, Lt-Col Ange-Antoine Leccia, told AFP. Sunday's clash was the fourth in the past eight days between the rebels and the French forces, news organisations reported. Originally some 1200 French troops had been deployed to protect foreigners and monitor a ceasefire signed by MPCI in October and accepted by the government. France has since increased its troops to 2,500 and mandated them to enforce the truce. In a related development, some 50 to 60 members of an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) peacekeeping force were expected in the country on Tuesday. ECOWAS hopes to deploy 1,500 peacekeepers. Meanwhile, some 469 Guineans repatriated by boat from Cote d'Ivoire arrived in the Guinean capital, Conakry, on Saturday in the first government-organised repatriation by sea, AFP quoted Guinean authorities as saying.