ABIDJAN (AFP) - Ivory Coast was under an arms embargo after a unanimous vote in the UN Security Council aimed at quelling violence that has convulsed the west African powerhouse and sent thousands of foreigners and citizens fleeing.
The council voted Monday to back a resolution proposed by France against its former west African colony after three days of government air strikes on positions in the rebel-held north of the country, in violation of an 18-month-old ceasefire reached under a peace deal to end a 2002 civil war.
Nine French peacekeepers and a US aid worker were killed in the last of the air raids, and rebel leader Guillaume Soro has said at least 85 civilians lost their lives, though those figures have not been confirmed.
While Ivory Coast's ruling party has refrained from comment on the resolution, its ambassador to the United Nations Philippe Djangone-Bi blasted the decision as "unjust" and declared that Paris was both "judge and jury" in the affair.
One Gbagbo supporter put a positive spin on the sanctions, saying "they are the occasion to show our patriotism and even firmer backing for President Gbagbo".
National radio on Tuesday called on Ivorians to "remain strong and united in the face of adversity" following the resolution.
Some of the station's listeners called in to say that, despite the "setback", the aim for Ivory Coast must still be reunification of the country, split into the rebel north and government south since a botched bid to oust President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002.
The radio had helped fan anti-French violence after the French retaliated for the killing of nine of their soldiers, with an attack that almost obliterated the Ivorian air force.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said Tuesday the UN resolution also "demanded an end to broadcasts by Ivorian television and radio which incite hatred and intolerance.
"These broadcasts are not removed from the violence which hit our compatriots," he said.
The International Francophony Organisation also threw its weight behind the UN resolution, with Secretary General Abdou Diouf rigorously condemning the "government offensive on the north."
"We energetically condemn the attack which was led against the French camp. We back the resolution voted by the Security Council," Diouf, a former president of Senegal, said.
"And we will use all our forces to ensure that the resolution is applied."
The resolution also received strong support from the African Union, which has opened talks with the political foes in the two-year-old crisis to try to curtail tensions that could shatter a fragile peace struggling to take hold in the troubled region, among the world's poorest and most volatile.
The UN refugee agency said more than 10,000 Ivorians have flooded into northeastern Liberia in a bid to escape the fresh fighting between rebel and government forces.
New arrivals were being reported daily, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, taxing the meagre stocks alloted to Liberia, itself struggling to emerge from 14 years of war.
More than 5,500 foreign nationals have been airlifted out of Ivory Coast after five days of riots that convulsed Abidjan after France wiped out the Ivorian air force to retaliate for the deadly air strikes in the north.
Dozens of people were injured and several women raped during the mob violence, the French military in Abidjan has said.
Competing death tolls from Ivorian government sources say between 22 and 64 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured. There has been no confirmation that any foreign nationals were killed, though two French nationals are missing.
The last of the evacuation flights organised by the French government landed at Paris' Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport early Tuesday.
The rebels, meanwhile, have called the air strikes and subsequent power cuts in the north an opening offensive by a government unwilling to find a political solution to the crisis.
Electricity and water were restored Tuesday morning after having been cut off for a second time on Sunday.
In statements echoed by France, the rebels also noted that the appointment of Colonel Philippe Mangou as the new armed forces chief of staff was a signal that Gbagbo has chosen the "war option".
Mangou is considered responsible by France for the deadly air strikes.
"If you want to make peace you do not choose a hawk to be your war commander," cooperation minister Xavier Darcos said on French television Tuesday.
"It is a sign of hostility, a sign of provocation."

11/16/2004 - 16:29 GMT - AFP