ABIDJAN (AFP) - Top Ivory Coast officials appealed for calm, hoping to bring an end to the latest wave of violence that left at least 13 dead and hundreds injured in this divided west African state.
The UN Security Council, meanwhile, was debating a French proposal for an arms embargo against Ivory Coast, which was split between rebel and government zones after a failed coup in September 2002 sparked a civil war.
The world`s top cocoa producer has been rocked by violence since Thursday, when Ivorian air strikes strafed the rebel strongholds of Bouake and Korhogo in what President Laurent Gbagbo called an operation to "liberate and reunite the country."
But Ivorian parliamentary speaker Mamadou Koulibaly, who had stoked xenophobic fires at the weekend after French forces wiped out the Ivorian air force in retaliation for a government air strike that killed nine French soldiers and a US civilian, said Monday that the time for belligerence had passed.
"We are proceeding towards calm so as to resume economic activity," he said after a meeting at the Hotel Ivoire with French and Ivorian military officials at which he proposed joint patrols by French and Ivorian security forces to help restore order.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, citing hospital officials in Abidjan, said Monday that more than 400 people were injured in the violence, including some with wounds from heavy weapons.
"The number of dead remains approximate but we fear that it will also be high," the ICRC said from Geneva.
Prices for cocoa, Ivory Coast`s main export, soared to a three-month high Monday on London`s futures market amid fears of further violence.
The luxury hotel, less than a kilometer (half-mile) from Gbagbo`s residence, had been an earlier target for thousands of anti-French demonstrators, called into the streets by state radio to protect the president.
French troops in tanks fired shots in the air to disperse the protesters, who carried signs warning that "if the country fails, each to his own Frenchman".
French General Henri Poncet emerged from the meeting seeking to reaffirm the mission of the 4,000 French troops patrolling a ceasefire in place since May 2003.
"Our objective is to reassure the expatriate community and to secure residents in the Ivorian economic capital from being robbed or injured," he said of Operation Unicorn, which has been reinforced since Sunday by several hundred soldiers.
"We have no intention of overthrowing President Gbagbo."
French forces riposted immediately after Saturday`s raid, destroying Ivory Coast`s air force and seizing control of the international airport.
Their action unleashed a torrent of anti-French violence in Abidjan, which expanded to include all Europeans. Over 48 harrowing hours, people were pulled from their cars and beaten, their watches and jewelry stolen.
Others sat helpless on their roofs as their homes were vandalized then torched. French schools in Abidjan were sent up in billows of grey smoke.
Spain has begun making preparations to evacuate its nationals, while the shipping company DHL is sending the families of their employees away from Abidjan until further notice.
Another 800 foreigners have sought refuge at the headquarters of the UN mission in Ivory Coast (ONUCI), while a French military base has taken in another 1,200 panicked civilians.
France, however, has ruled out the immediate evacuation of the 14,000 French nationals remaining in the former French colony, most of whom are in Abidjan.
Gbagbo appealed for calm in a televised address late Sunday, but defended his decision to order the raids. "We can no longer be held hostage by a rebellion that knows not what it wants."
But rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told AFP from Bouake: "Only the removal of Laurent Gbagbo from power will restore calm to political business, allow the transition to succeed and the peace accord to be implemented."
Armed citizens in the northern town of Korhogo were seen packing into sports utility vehicles bound for Bouake and the center-west of the rebel zone.
They were going to "reinforce" the rebel positions, spokesman Alphonse Soro told AFP in Korhogo.
South African President Thabo Mbeki was due to head for Abidjan Tuesday as the African Union`s envoy to mediate an end to the crisis. He joined other worried African states -- Algeria, Senegal and Mali -- in calling for an end to hostilities.
11/08/2004 - 20:14 GMT - AFP