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French citizens flee country "with death in their hearts"

[Cote d'Ivoire] Dutch residents from Abidjan wait in Dakar for a plane to take them to Holland. They are among hundreds of people who fled Cote d'Ivoire after mob violence erupted at the beginning of November 2004. IRIN
Expatriate residents in Abidjan have been fleeing the city after violence erupted on Saturday
Hundreds of French people fled Cote d'Ivoire on Wednesday, boarding planes to take them far away from the mob violence, anti-French protests and hate-message campaigns that have plagued Abidjan for the last five days. "We are unbelievably relieved to be leaving. But we are terribly sad, we are going with death in our hearts," French businessman Vincent told IRIN by telephone, as he waited for a plane to whisk him, his pregnant wife and their two small children to safety in Paris. "We hear the worst things. People are talking about murders and rapes. We see French people arriving, beaten and injured. It's so messed up. All hope has died," said the insurance company owner, who has been in the former French colony for six years. "We are going back to my mother's. We will cry, we will breathe and we will think about what to do now. We have lost everything, our jobs, our businesses. We have to start from zero." Cote d'Ivoire was once an economic and political success story in an otherwise volatile West Africa and many expatriates flocked to live amidst the gleaming skyscrapers of Abidjan, the commercial hub of the former French colony. Now fear is the overwhelming feeling. Whipped up by anti-French messages on state television and radio, militant supporters of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo went on the rampage on Saturday, furious at Paris' decision to wipe out almost the entire Ivorian air force in retaliation for the deaths of nine French peacekeepers in an attack by government planes. French schools, businesses and homes have been ransacked and set on fire, and at least two French people are missing since the violence broke out. By Wednesday morning, thousands of French and other foreigners were camped out at UN and French military sites, some frightened out of their homes by machete-wielding looters, others not wanting to hang around and take the risk. At the French military base, expatriates stood waiting for planes, their suitcases at the ready, while those not leaving on Wednesday prepared for another night on the military camp beds. "There are around 2,000 that want to leave," a French military source told IRIN. "Most of the people that wish to be evacuated are French." A spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Paris told IRIN that four planes would leave Abidjan on Thursday. "That represents a thousand or so places. It's not an evacuation. We are just taking those who have asked to leave," she said, declining to say how many had made such a request. Paris says there are about 14,000 French citizens living in Cote d'Ivoire, including 8,000 who have dual nationality. Talks in Pretoria Cote d'Ivoire has been split into a government-run south and a rebel-held north since September 2002, but a peace process designed to lead the country to elections in October 2005 has been stalled for months. Each side blames the other for failing to live up to its half of the deal, with the government not pushing through political reforms outlined in a 2003 French-brokered peace deal and the rebels refusing to disarm. Against a backdrop of violence, which started last week when the government broke an eighteen-month ceasefire and bombed rebel positions, South African President Thabo Mbeki continued his diplomatic efforts. After flying into Abidjan for three hours of talks with Gbagbo on Tuesday, Mbeki will on Thursday host the "leaders of various political parties and formations representing a wide spectrum of political opinion within Cote d'Ivoire", the South African foreign ministry said in a statement. A senior South African government source said Cote d'Ivoire's former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, who was banned from standing against Gbagbo in presidential elections in 2000, would be among the participants. Another Ivorian opposition party, the PDCI, said it would be sending representatives to Pretoria but rebel leader Guillaume Soro said his New Forces had not been invited. "I'm not going, I haven't been invited and besides we are at war and my place is not over there," Soro told IRIN by telephone. Back in Abidjan, as UN trucks and French boats continued to rescue worried foreigners from their homes and other sites around the city, even those not racing to get out of Cote d'Ivoire were predicting a bleak future for the world's top cocoa producer. "The fuse is alight, but it hasn't quite reached the gunpowder barrel," Patrick, a French businessman, said by telephone from the city. The Frenchman was born in Abidjan, but now is only staying in the city long enough to sort out his affairs and ship things to Senegal. "It was difficult but I have now accepted the idea of leaving. It's not a time for heroics," he said, looking out onto a street littered with vandalised cars, and lined with now-ruined shops owned by Mauritanians and other West Africans. "The worst is yet to happen. We will see an ethnic settling of scores. There will be a massacre,” he predicted. “The battle of Abidjan is still to come."

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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