GENEVA (AFP) - More than 410 people were wounded and many were feared killed in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan at the weekend when pro-government demonstrators clashed with French forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) revealed.
"On Sunday evening, more than 410 people were treated for light or serious injuries," including some caused by heavy weapons, the ICRC said in a statement, citing hospital officials in Abidjan.
"The number of dead remains approximate but we fear that it will also be high," the statement said Monday.
The ICRC did not specify the circumstances in which the people were injured or the nationalities of the victims.
Clashes broke out in Abidjan on Saturday after French forces destroyed Ivorian military aircraft to retaliate for an air strike on a French military base in rebel-held Bouake that killed nine French soldiers and a US civilian.
Mobs overnight Saturday rampaged through districts of the capital where French nationals live, attacking them and looting their property, witnesses said.
New clashes erupted Monday in Abidjan between French troops and thousands of demonstrators who accused the French of wanting to topple President Laurent Gbagbo, while a crisis meeting was set to address the rising tensions.
The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) said 78 civilian wounded were admitted to hospital Sunday in Abidjan's working-class district of Treicheville.
A death toll compiled from reports from the French military and official Ivorian sources puts the number of dead in the unrest at 13: nine French soldiers and one US civilian killed in the raid on the French encampment in Bouake and three Ivorian civilians killed in a riposte against demonstrators by the French.
The ICRC said the violence of the clashes prevented its teams and those of the Ivorian Red Cross from beginning rescue operations until late Sunday morning.
It also said that ICRC personnel had been threatened and the organisation accused of taking sides in the conflict that has simmered in Ivory Coast since a botched rebel uprising in September 2002, aimed at toppling Gbagbo.
"Ivorians threatened the Red Cross on local television, accusing it of not being neutral," said ICRC spokesman Ian Piper. "As a result, we fear our vehicles and personnel could be attacked."
The ICRC has around 30 staff members working in Abidjan, four in Bouake and four in the western city of Man, he said.
"We are trying to continue our activities, cautiously," Piper said, adding that the ICRC was continuing to supply hospitals with medicines.
On Friday, the United Nations said it was suspending humanitarian activities in Ivory Coast because of the volatile security situation in the west African country.
The ICRC statement criticised "the attitude of those involved in the unrest, members of the (French force) Operation Unicorn as well as (pro-government) 'Young Patriots,' disinclined in the heat of the moment to facilitate the work of humanitarian workers."
The ICRC has voiced its "concern" to both sides and received assurances of respect for its emblem, the statement said.
"The ICRC asks that its personnel be protected and that their humanitarian work be respected," it said.
The two organizations evacuated the wounded from overflowing emergency centers to better equipped hospitals.
"The assistance brought by the Red Cross was unfortunately short of needs," the statement said.
11/08/2004 - 16:58 GMT - AFP