DAKAR, Nov 11 (AFP) - A French naval support ship carrying landing barges, Le Sirocco, was due Thursday to set sail from Senegal for Ivory Coast, where unrest has led to the mass evacuation of foreigners, an informed source said.
In France, a naval task force based in the Mediterranean port of Toulon said two other ships, the transport Foudre and frigate La Fayette sailed on Wednesday for Ivory Coast.
The divided country, once a post-colonial success story in west Africa and the world's top cocoa producer, has been caught up for more than a week in serious unrest leading France and other countries to start evacuating their nationals there.
The Sirocco was to set sail at 5:00 pm (1700 GMT) from Dakar, which lies further to the northeast on Africa's Atlantic coastline, for the main Ivory Coast city of Abidjan, the coastal seat of the government.
The source told AFP that the vessel had been due to leave Dakar for Benin as part of a routine joint French-regional African military exercise under way, but its departure for Abidjan, on the way to Benin, had been brought forward because of the serious situation.
The source gave no details of the orders given to the ship's commanders and whether they were related either to evacuating French and other foreign nationals in Ivory Coast or to a force of more than 4,000 French troops already part of a peacekeeping operation there.
It was "just in case", the source told AFP.
The ships on their way from Toulon in southern France, crewed by some 400 men, are expected to be in the waters off Ivory Coast by November 20.
French troops, alongside mainly west African soldiers forming a UN mission, have been patrolling ceasefire lines between the government-held south and rebel north of Ivory Coast, split since ethnic and political crises led to civil war two years ago.
11/11/2004 16:30 GMT - AFP