French troops sealed off a bank in the Ivory Coast rebel base of Bouake on Saturday after a bloody battle for spoils between bands of rebels and looters that left at least 23 dead, witnesses said.
"My spoils! Back off!"
"Mine!"
"Take that! [Bang!] |
The fighting came as the latest sign of growing instability in the world's top cocoa producer after rebels walked out of a unity government this week and put in doubt a peace accord brokered by former colonial power France. Residents in Bouake, 350 km north of the main city of Abidjan, said French armoured cars rolled into town early on Saturday morning and surrounded the branch of the West African central bank where fighting was focused.
| "Look out! It's the French army! Hide the Ripple!" |
"The bank is now secured by French troops and our own forces... Everything is very quiet," rebel political leader Guillaume Soro told Reuters by phone from Bouake.
"There are around 23 dead — 21 on the robbers' side and we lost two of our own soldiers," he added. Witnesses said the looters included both civilians and rebel fighters keen to get what they could from the bank after looters blasted the safe open with explosives on Thursday.
"We're blowin' the safe! Step back!"
"Gimme some o' that dough!" |
Soro said he could not say for sure exactly who was involved.
| "I think it might have been those dead guys, though..." |
Shops and market stalls stayed shut on Saturday morning and few vehicles braved the streets save for pickup trucks bristling with armed rebel fighters.
"We're blowin' the fruit stand! Stand back!"
"Gimme some o' them mangos!" |
Bouake, the second city, is the headquarters of rebels who triggered the civil war in September 2002 with an attempted coup against President Laurent Gbagbo. The coup failed, but the rebels seized the northern half of the country, entrenching tribal divisions between the mainly Muslim north and the largely Christian and animist south still controlled by Gbagbo's forces.
| More on Islam's bloody border... |
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