Johannesburg — French troops have rescued 160 mainly American children and staff trapped at an international school in Bouake, the central Ivorian city which has been under control of mutinous soldiers for almost a week.
The evacuation came after instructions from the Americans that the children be driven to safety out of the city, in convoy, towards a temporary French military base at the airport in the Cote dIvoire capital, Yamoussoukro, about 40 miles (65km) south of Bouake.
Reports said two American Hercules transport planes, which landed in Yamoussoukro on Wednesday, were on standby to fly out the children, probably to neighbouring Ghana.
The students, ranging in age from 5 to 18, waved American flags and shouted Vive La France (Long Live France).
The mission school was caught in crossfire between loyalist Ivorian government troops and dissident forces in Bouake, one of three key cities which the mutineers attacked in a coordinated assault last Thursday. The authorities recaptured the main city, Abidjan, almost immediately, but Bouake and Korhogo, a strategic northern town, remain in rebel hands.
The hasty departure, under French military protection, of the schoolchildren from the International Christian Academy left the fate of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable local people in Bouake unclear. The government has been threatening an all-out offensive against the mutineers, giving rise to fears among Bouake residents about their own safety. But the promised battle is yet to occur.
Water and electricity have been cut in the city since the weekend. Most shops are closed and the price of food and fuel has soared. Most people are fearful and frustrated and trapped at home while running short of essentials.
After the rescue, the French soldiers took over the school compound, making it their Bouake base, while reports said foreign troops were fanning out, heading northwards to ensure the security of other foreign nationals.
A small British military reconnaissance mission has also arrived in Cote dIvoire.
The country has been in the grip of a bloody uprising since last Thursday. What initially appeared to be an army mutiny by an estimated 750 disaffected soldiers, angry at early demobilisation, quickly degenerated into what the authorities are calling an attempted coup detat.
Regional and continental peace initiatives hit a snag this week, after a planned African heads of state summit on Thursday, sponsored by Morocco and Gabon on the situation in Cote d'Ivoire, was postponed indefinitely. The organisers said they could not be sure the Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo could attend.
The West African economic community, Ecowas, also announced that a regional leaders meeting, scheduled for Saturday in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, had been delayed by a week until 5 October.
Speaking from neighbouring Burkina Faso, where he led a delegation to meet President Blaise Compaore in the capital Ouagadougou, the Ecowas executive-secretary, Mohamed ibn Chambas, repeated that any attempt at an unconstitutional military takeover in Cote dIvoire would not be tolerated by the region.
"We must see it as a major priority to ensure that peace and security returns to Cote d'Ivoire," he said, adding that he hoped that the spirit of "a borderless West Africa in which all our people can move around and settle freely in any country" would soon be restored.
Burkina has indirectly been accused by Cote dIvoire of playing a role in the coup. The Burkina government rejects that accusation but the Ivorian government's hints prompted ugly retaliatory attacks last week against some of the millions of Burkinabe expatriates living and working in Cote d'Ivoire. They were forced out of their shantytown homes, which were set alight and their belongings robbed.
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Burkina has sent a letter of protest to the Ivorian government over the harassment of its citizens in Cote dIvoire. Meanwhile, gangs of pro-government Ivorian youths vandalised the Burkinabe consulate in Abidjan on Wednesday, before they attacked shops owned by immigrants from Burkina.
Chambas told reporters: "Ecowas is going to do all it can to help restore the rule of law and order, security for all Ivorians and other nationals living in Cote dIvoire." He said Compaore had responded to the crisis across the border in a "calm and cool manner".
The already strained relations between the two neighbours have taken a nosedive in recent days, as tensions rise, frontiers are closed and the bitter war of words intensifies.
