ABIDJAN (AFP) - Calm was returning slowly to the main Ivory Coast city Abidjan after a wave of violence that sent hundreds of expatriates and thousands of nationals fleeing, as a new diplomatic chapter opened in South Africa to find a political solution to the crisis.
Popular former prime minister Alassane Ouattara was the first to arrive for talks with President Thabo Mbeki in an African Union bid to reconcile the divided west African state and end the week of turmoil that has left a reported 169 people dead, 64 of whom were killed in clashes in Abidjan.
The UN Security Council had been set Wednesday to adopt a resolution giving Ivory Coast 30 days to implement a stalled peace pact or face sanctions to include an arms embargo.
The council delayed voting until Monday to give Mbeki more time to hammer out a deal between the government and its political opposition.
Flights carrying panicked foreign nationals took off from Abidjan's airport, which was due to reopen Thursday after being closed and under French military control since Saturday.
An airliner carrying 512 passengers will depart Thursday morning, following two planes that landed safely late Wednesday in Paris with a total of 607 people, French military spokesman Major Jacques Combarieu told AFP.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had said 1,300 of the 14,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast had signed up to leave after a wave of xenophobic violence and vandalism swept through Abidjan since Saturday.
Expatriates from Canada, Spain, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal were also flying out.
State radio and television, which had been airing hate-filled exhortations to supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo to take to the streets on an anti-French rampage, finally broadcast a message from the firebrand leader of the "Young Patriots" asking his followers to desist.
"Lift your roadblocks and leave the streets," said Charles Ble Goude, whose bellicose rhetoric since Saturday accused France of preparing a coup against Gbagbo.
"I am asking you to stop attacking the French; we should not lose sight of our real fight."
Businesses in the commercial capital were also reopening their doors as a growing number of people ventured out into the garbage-strewn streets on public buses or in shared taxis.
Cocoa exports from the world's top producer of the bean have been suspended since Monday due to the turmoil sparked by France's virtual destruction of the small Ivorian air force in reprisal for a government air strike on a French base that killed nine French troops and a US aid worker.
Cocoa traders were bracing for further shocks after prices hit record highs this week over the unrest in Ivory Coast.
But while Abidjan was returning to calm, the rest of the country of 17 million was still bracing for further problems, particularly in the rebel-held north which has been without water, power or telephone service for a week after three days of bombings by government planes.
"It is imperative that water and electricity supplies be immediately restored in the north by the Ivorian authorities, otherwise the health status of already vulnerable populations may deteriorate sharply in just a matter of days," said Rima Salah, the west Africa director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
More than 5,000 Ivorians have fled to Liberia and another 5,000 are waiting to go, a UN official told AFP, amid reports of gunfire and mounting tensions between indigenous Ivorian populations and immigrant planters working in the western cocoa belt.
Such clashes have killed at least five people in Gagnoa in the government-run southwest, which is considered a flashpoint for new xenophobic conflict, according to Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based watchdog on Thursday blasted the Ivory Coast government for its failure to rein in militias committing religious and ethnically based crimes nationwide.
"The Ivorian government's failure to hold members of the militias and security forces accountable for these abuses has only strengthened the impunity of these groups and emboldened the perpetrators, both in Abidjan and the rural areas," HRW said in a statement.
11/11/2004 - 15:28 GMT - AFP