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GENEVA, Oct 19: The United Nations has decided to evacuate all its non-essential personnel and their families from Ivory Coast’s main commercial city Abidjan as a “precautionary measure,” a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Saturday.
The evacuation, which concerns only Abidjan, was effective from Thursday, said the spokeswoman Elisabeth Bys.
Non-essential personnel of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and their families have already begun to leave, said UNDP spokesman Jean Fabre in Geneva.
He characterized the situation in Abidjan as “sufficiently tense”.
The evacuation comes despite a ceasefire reached Thursday in the month-long uprising.
The United States ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave the west African country on Friday.
Five European nations — Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain — on Wednesday advised their nationals in Ivory Coast to leave the country.
PEACE FORCE: West African leaders will meet next week to set up a regional peacekeeping force to monitor a ceasefire between the government and rebels in Ivory Coast, the ECOWAS group of countries said Saturday.
A statement released in Abuja by the secretariat of the 15-nation bloc said heads of state from a six nation contact group set up to mediate between the two sides in the crisis would meet Tuesday at an as yet undetermined location.
On Friday a second meeting will bring together defence chiefs from the region to discuss the precise mission and make-up of the force destined to oversee a cessation of hostilities brokered by mediators last week.
Tuesday’s meeting of the leaders of Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Ghana and Togo would “deliberate on the process for initiating dialogue between that country’s government and mutineers,” the statement said.
The defence chiefs will “consider the deployment, mission and structure of the force to be deployed to that country by ECOWAS to monitor closely the Oct 17 agreement,” it added.
On Thursday, Ivory Coast’s rebel army, a force mainly made up of mutinous soldiers that has taken control of the north of the country in a month long war with President Laurent Gbagbo’s government, agreed to a ceasefire.
But they have refused to lay down their arms and French troops have been deployed to monitor the frontline while mediators from the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) attempt to broker a political solution.
Once the regional powers have agreed on the make-up of a regional force it is expected to deploy to replace the French troops and maintain stability while discussions continue.
ECOWAS has previously deployed troops to Liberia and Sierra Leone.—AFP
