No pause in foreigners' exodus from Ivory Coast

An exodus of foreigners from Ivory Coast showed no signs of easing yesterday as West African leaders prepared to meet in Nigeria for emergency talks about a crisis which threatens the entire region.

More French citizens arrived at a French military base by car in the main city of Abidjan, clutching bags, dogs and cats, while 780 people boarded flights to Paris and a similar number readied to leave their former colony today.

"I've lived here for seven years and I've never seen such hate. People have been terrorised," said Christian Berche, 59, a retired doctor from France, dishevelled and leaning on crutches.

Nearly 5,000 Europeans have been evacuated since Wednesday, companies have jetted out 470 expatriate workers, while 200 UN staff, 100 Moroccans and many more Africans have quit a nation that was once a model of post-independence prosperity. South African President Thabo Mbeki met Burkina Faso's leader in Pretoria yesterday ahead of Sunday's summit, which is due to be attended by the leaders of Nigeria, Gabon, Ghana, Burkina, Libya and Senegal.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was down to attend but an aide said on Friday there was very little chance he would make the trip.

The unrest began last week after his forces shattered an 18-month ceasefire by bombing the north of the world's top cocoa grower, seized by rebel soldiers in 2002 after a failed coup attempt. After Ivorian forces killed nine peacekeepers in a raid on a French base last Saturday, France crippled the state's air force, unleashing violent mobs of Ivorian youths whipped into a frenzy by anti-French messages on local media.

"This use of the media to spread false information... to manipulate the crowds, this is something the Ivorian authorities are well acquainted with and control very well," said General Henri Poncet, head of some 5,000 French troops in Ivory Coast.

He said the situation had improved considerably for now and that he hoped stability would return, but said French troops would remain in Ivory Coast with reinforcements nearby.

About 15,000 French nationals have long resisted quitting their former colony despite a string of coup attempts, the outbreak of civil war and repeated anti-French riots.

But the violent attacks by Gbagbo's supporters this week proved too much for many.

"If we stay we risk being attacked. If we go to France we are treated as blacks. So where do we go?" said a woman with Ivorian and French nationality boarding a plane for Senegal.

French President Jacques Chirac has condemned the serious acts of violence meted out on French and other foreigners during the riots and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said yesterday that Paris would prosecute anyone found guilty of rape.

White residents were the first targets as mobs went from door-to-door but Ivorians of mixed race, members of the big Lebanese community in Ivory Coast and Africans who had fled to Abidjan from wars in their own countries were not spared.

"You are the same filth as the whites," a mob of men shouted at Lebanese sales manager Moustapaha Hojeij, 32, after beating on his door with an iron bar and threatening to rape his wife. "They said: 'do you know what we are going to do to your wife in front of you?" he said. "Three soldiers came later, they didn't care. They didn't even arrest anyone."