UN blue helmets preparing to return to west after January riots

The commander of the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire said Thursday that peacekeeping troops were preparing to return to the volatile government-run western region.

General Abdoulaye Fall told a news conference that UN troops currently deployed elsewhere in the war-divided nation were to be transferred to military bases in the west. He did not elaborate or mention a date.

"Preparation is continuing for the redeployment of the positions previously occupied by the UN," Fall said.

In January, hundreds of Bangladeshi peacekeepers abandoned UN compounds in the western towns of Guiglo and Duekoue as they came under attack from angry youths protesting the UN’s role in efforts to end more than three years of conflict in Cote d’Ivoire.

UN and UN agency facilities in the area were subsequently ransacked and looted in what UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called "orchestrated violence". Annan has said he was sending a bill for the damage, estimated at US $ 3.5 million, to President Laurent Gbagbo.

UN mission personnel, evacuated to Gambia following the violence, began returning to Abidjan on 26 February according to UN officials.