Gbagbo holds on as foreign envoys call for evacuation

Apr 7, 2011, 10:56 GMT

Paris/Abidjan - Beleaguered Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo remained holed up in a bunker surrounded by forces loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara on Thursday, as foreign ambassadors lined up for evacuation by French forces.

Gbagbo's military surrendered on Tuesday, but Outtara's forces have been unable to winkle the president, who is being protected by the scraps of his soldiers, out from his hidey-hole at his residence in the economic capital Abidjan.

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said Thursday Gbagbo was believed to have less than 1,000 men at his disposal, including around 200 at his residence.

UN-led talks have failed to convince Gbagbo to give up and acknowledge that Ouattara, seen as the rightful winner of disputed presidential elections in November, should be running the country.

An assault on the bunker failed Wednesday, and Ouattara's forces are laying siege to Gbagbo and his loyalists.

After French forces rescued the Japanese ambassador to Ivory Coast from his Abidjan residence overnight, France has been asked by several other countries, including Israel, to evacuate their diplomats, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

'I've just had the foreign minister of Israel on the phone asking the assistance of Unicorn (the name of the French peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast) to rescue its diplomats,' he told a hearing of the Senate commissions of foreign affairs and defense.

'Several' embassies had put their hands up for help, including India's, he added.

The embassy quarter in Abidjan is caught up in what many expect to be the final showdown between the opposing forces. On Wednesday night, French helicopters intervened to rescue the Japanese ambassador after pro-Gbagbo militia stormed his residence and installed heavy weaponry on the roof.

The ambassador and several aides were evacuated to a French military base near the airport.

Serious military action by the rebel forces backing Ouattara only got going in recent weeks after mediation efforts and sanctions failed to budge Gbagbo.

The Republican Forces of Cote D'Ivoire (FRCI), comprised of northern rebels, New Forces and other armed groups, easily overran Yamoussoukro, the nation's political capital, and the city of San Pedro, the world's largest cocoa-exporting port.

More than 1,000 people, many of them civilians, are said to have been killed during the conflict, including almost 1,000 in a massacre suspected of being carried out by pro-Ouattara forces in a town in the west of Ivory Coast.

The November poll was supposed to consign to history the ghost of the civil war that broke out in 2002 and divided the country into the rebel, mainly Muslim north and Christian south.

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