Johannesburg — Reports Tuesday from Bouake, the second largest city in Cote d'Ivoire, said there were gun battles between loyalist government troops and mutinous soldiers, who seized the town last Thursday in what the authorities have called an attempted coup d'etat.
Meanwhile, Washington announced that it was sending in troops to protect Americans caught up in the violent uprising in Cote d'Ivoire. The deployment came at the request of the U.S. ambassador in Abidjan. "The United States is committed to ensuring the safety of its citizens," said Lt. Commander Donald Sewell, a Defense Department spokesman, adding, "This is not an evacuation".
French military reinforcements arrived on Sunday and proceeded north towards Bouake on Monday. France, the former colonial power, already has a 600-strong army presence in Cote d'Ivoire, as well as agreements to help restore law and order if necessary. But Paris has said it will not get militarily involved and is on standby to help evacuate French and other foreign citizens.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of local residents, three hundred Americans - including schoolchildren - and six hundred French nationals are trapped in the fighting in Bouake, which lies 210 miles (350 km) north of the country's principal metropolis, Abidjan. Several African national soccer teams, who were competing in a regional tournament, are also caught up in the stand-off in Bouake.
The government says an estimated 270 people have been killed and at least 300 wounded since Thursday.
Bursts of gunfire and the boom of anti-tank rockets were heard on Tuesday in Bouake, despite indications earlier that the government and the rebels seemed to want to avoid more bloodshed. There was talk of mediation and negotiations. Residents in the city said it appeared that the army was trying to push back the dissident troops and recapture the city.
Also under the control of the mutineers is the country's main town in the north, Korhogo, which is 380 miles (634 km) from Abidjan. What has become the most serious crisis in Cote d'Ivoire in its 42-year history is being seen as a regional threat by neighbouring countries, which have dispatched envoys to talk to the government and to try to broker a peaceful solution.
The Ivorian authorities have fingered unnamed northern neighbours, presumably Burkina Faso and Mali, as instigators in the current unrest, and have closed the borders with both countries. Large numbers of Burkinabe and Malian citizens live and work in Cote d'Ivoire.
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Nigeria, Ghana and Togo have sent top-level delegations to Abidjan. Senegal, currently the chair of the regional Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), sent its foreign minister and a senior military representative on Tuesday. Last week, Ecowas condemned the uprising as unconstitutional and has announced that it will hold an emergency meeting on the situation in Cote d'Ivoire on Saturday in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.
Other diplomatic moves include a planned meeting in Morocco on Thursday of half a dozen African leaders, as well as the French foreign minister. Reports said the presidents of Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal Togo and Gabon were expected to attend the Morocco summit. It was not clear whether the Ivorian leader would be able to join then. But later reports Tuesday, quoting the office of Gabon's President Omar Bongo, said the Marrakech summit had been postponed indefinitely after telephone calls with the Ivorians, "in agreement with King Mohanmmed VI of Morocco".
The latest conflict in Cote d'Ivoire follows almost three years of political instability, after the country's first-ever coup d'etat in December 1999. The man who took over as the military leader, General Robert Guei, was shot dead at the start of Thursday's uprising and was accused by the government of being behind the trouble. The Interior Minister, Maitre Emile Boga Doudou, was also killed by rebel troops.
Ethnic, religious and political strife divisions have arisen in recent years, pitting the predominantly Muslim and pro-opposition north of Cote d'Ivoire against the largely Christian south and west, home of the President Laurent Gbagbo, who elected in controversial polls in 2000 that Guei tried and failed to rig.
