UN patrols Ivory Coast villages after clashes

ABIDJAN - More than 200 UN and French peacekeepers have deployed in villages in western Ivory Coast to encourage locals back to their homes after at least five people were killed in clashes last month.

The violence happened in the Bangolo region near the border with Liberia in late April, a region where ethnic tensions over farmland have been exacerbated by a 2002-03 civil war which left the world's top cocoa grower split in two.

"We have strengthened the presence and increased the patrols to prevent further incidents of this kind and to give a feeling of security and reassure the population," Margherita Amodeo, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, told Reuters.

Ivory Coast's west was the main battleground during the early stages of the former French colony's civil war, in which rebels seized the north of the country after failing in an attempt to oust President Laurent Gbagbo.

The UN peacekeeping mission, which has more than 7000 troops keeping rebel and government forces apart and is backed by 4000 French soldiers, was now patrolling day and night in the villages where April's attacks happened, Amodeo said.

Village leaders were also using megaphones to call on displaced residents to return home after they fled fearing the violence would escalate. French peacekeepers had also set up a camp in one of the villages to deter further violence.

The world's top cocoa grower is supposed to be holding polls at the end of October under the terms of a UN-backed peace plan, but diplomats are increasingly doubtful that the deadline will be met with disarmament in the country yet to begin.

- REUTERS