Militias start to disarm in war-divided Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN - Militiamen in war-divided Ivory Coast gave up their guns today, starting a long-delayed disarmament process and marking a rare advance in a faltering peace process aimed at holding elections by the end of October.

The first 150 of 2,000 armed fighters who fought alongside government troops in a brief 2002-03 civil war against rebels who seized the West African state's northern half turned over machineguns and canons to UN troops who enforce a ceasefire.

It was the first formal mass disarmament since the war. Last year the same militias symbolically handed over a single gun, but failed to follow through with disarmament as the peace process got bogged down in political wrangling.

"It has started. They brought arms in a pick-up truck and gave them to the UN," said an official from the reconciliation government's disarmament programme who watched the handover in Guiglo, a militia stronghold town near the Liberian border.

- REUTERS