Chaos in Ivory Coast as UN attacked

ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast's president has urged his supporters to end a wave of attacks on UN peacekeepers in which at least four people were killed.

The appeal came after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo flew in for a lightning peace mission.

Obasanjo, who is also chairman of the African Union, flew in to meet Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, whose supporters have staged three days of anti-UN riots to protest at what they call foreign meddling in the war-divided West African state.

Bangladeshi peacekeepers were forced to shoot as protesters stormed their camp at Guiglo in the west and four protesters were killed, UN spokeswoman Margherita Amodeo said. UN staff said blue helmets later evacuated four bases in the west.

Ivorian state media reports put the death toll at five.

Hundreds of young Gbagbo loyalists clamouring for UN and French peacekeeping troops to leave have attacked UN bases, residences and vehicles with petrol bombs and stones across the government-controlled south since Monday.

They oppose a weekend call by foreign mediators to end the mandate of parliament, which is dominated by Gbagbo loyalists.

The attacks revived calls for the Security Council to impose sanctions on those preventing peace when it meets today.

After several hours of talks Obasanjo, Gbagbo, new premier Charles Konan Banny and UN special envoy Pierre Schori made a joint statement saying mediators had not dissolved parliament and calling for peace to be restored.

Obasanjo was a key player in brokering a UN peace plan to reunite the country, disarm the rival forces and hold presidential elections by the end of October.

But the latest violence threatens to derail what has been a fragile cease-fire since 2003 maintained by nearly 7,000 UN troops and police and 4,000 French soldiers. Amodeo said there were protests at all UN offices in government territory.

"UN forces are exercising maximum restraint in dealing with these attacks," said UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric in New York. A French army spokesman said the protesters killed at Guiglo had tried to take weapons and had climbed onto armoured vehicles. He said 12 more demonstrators were wounded.

In the commercial capital Abidjan, youths blocked streets, took over state television studios and broadcast demands for foreign peacekeepers to leave and for people to join protests.

The armed wing of the rebel "New Forces", which control Ivory Coast's north since a civil war began in 2002, accused the army of orchestrating the "absurd and pointless" violence.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Gbagbo's government to halt "orchestrated violence directed against the United Nations". The European Union also condemned the rioting.

- REUTERS