I Coast cops disperse marchers
2006-11-20 19:32
Abidjan - Police in Ivory Coast fired teargas on Monday to break up a protest by scores of port workers and youths loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo following the suspension of the head of the Abidjan Port Authority.
One policeman was wounded by stones hurled by the demonstrators while about 10 people, most of them militant Young Patriots, were arrested, an AFP reporter witnessed.
Police removed barricades of wood and stones that had been mounted at the main entrance to the port in the Ivorian economic capital, one of the biggest in west Africa.
The demonstrators said they wanted the reinstatement of Marcel Gossio, the director of Abidjan Port Authority, who was suspended two months ago after toxic waste was discharged from a ship then dumped in the economic capital, causing at least 10 deaths.
Suspension extended by three months
"We demand the reinstatement of Mr Gossio and the immediate publication of the results of investigations carried out by the government on the toxic waste issue," said the spokesperson for the port workers, Narcisse N'Depo.
Gossio's suspension was extended by a further three months last Thursday by the port's board of directors.
A close ally of Gbagbo and a member of his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party, Gossio was suspended from duty in September by prime minister Charles Konan Banny pending the completion of the probe.
A national commission of inquiry into the toxic waste scandal said on Monday it had competed its work and handed over the report to Banny.
On November 9, the Ivory Coast justice ministry said it had charged 18 people in connection with the toxic waste scandal which poisoned hundreds of people, 10 of them to death.
Fumes that poisoned thousands
Gossio is not among those charged.
Hundreds of tons of petroleum toxic waste from a ship chartered by a European company were dumped illicitly across more than a dozen open-air rubbish tips around Abidjan in August.
The toxic sludge was dumped in mid-August by Ivorian firm Tommy.
The waste gave out fumes that poisoned thousands of inhabitants of Abidjan resulting in at least 10 deaths and the hospitalisation of 69 other people. Doctors reportedly received more than 100 000 calls for medical help.
The waste has been excavated and shipped out for incineration in France.
Victims of the pollution have brought a lawsuit in the Netherlands against Swiss-based multinational Trafigura, which chartered the vessel that offloaded the waste in Ivory Coast.