I Coast needs AU's Obasanjo

2004-11-05 22:06

Dakar - African Union chairperson President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria could "very swiftly" go to Ivory Coast, where renewed military and political violence has broken out, the Senegalese government said on Friday.

Arson attacks on the premises of opposition parties began in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan on Thursday evening following air raids on towns held by former rebels, in which three people died and dozens were injured.

Senegalese "President Abdoulaye Wade has taken many initiatives regarding leaders in the west African region, including Ghanaian President John Kufuor ... and talks with Obasanjo," foreign minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said.

Rebel-controlled towns

Since a coup bid led to an insurgency in September 2002, Ivory Coast has been split between government-held territory in the south and rebel-controlled towns and land in the north and part of the west.

French troops and a United Nations peacekeeping mission are monitoring a fragile ceasefire, of which Thursday's raids were the most serious breach this year, and steps towards implementing a peace pact.

Obasanjo currently chairs the pan-African AU, which has a security council. Kufuor is chairman of the 15-nation economic community of west African states, which has sent peacekeepers to several troubled countries over the past decade.

"It was agreed that President Obasanjo will go to Abidjan. Last-minute hitches mean he will have to send an envoy ... although it is possible he will travel very swiftly to Abidjan," the Senegalese mininster said on the private Walfadjiri radio station.

- AFP