PRESIDENT MBEKI of South Africa arrived in Ivory Coast’s main city of Abidjan yesterday at the head of an urgent African Union peace mission to stop the former French colony sliding back into a civil war.

Mr Mbeki held emergency talks with President Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, whose decision last week to breach a UN- brokered ceasefire by bombing rebel positions in the north plunged the country into crisis.

Nine French peacekeepers and one American aid worker were killed and twenty-two other French soldiers injured in the attack on the northern rebel stronghold of Bouaké. France responded by destroying the country’s entire fledgeling air force and seizing control of Abidjan’s international airport.

That action, taken with the full support of the UN Security Council, triggered riots aimed at French and other foreign nationals. Thousands took to the streets chanting anti-French slogans. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that at least 410 people were hurt in the incidents, stoked by pro-government hardliners claiming that Paris planned to topple Mr Gbagbo.

Paris has strongly denied accusations that French soldiers shot dead at least 15 demonstrators. Heavily armed French forces mounted joint patrols yesterday with Ivorian and other UN peacekeepers. Last night it was reported that seven protesters were killed and 200 wounded by French soldiers in Abidjan. France said that the protesters had been shot by Ivorian security forces while protecting French troops.

President Mbeki was met at the airport by Albert Tevoedjre, of Benin, the UN special envoy to Ivory Coast who oversees the 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission deployed in the country. The South African leader, who played a key role in talks last July to kick-start Ivory Coast’s stalled peace process, was mandated on Sunday by the African Union to travel to Ivory Coast to try to broker a “political solution” to the crisis.

• Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French Defence Minister, told members of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement that Saturday’s fatal attack on French peacekeepers was deliberate, and that the Ivory Coast aircraft were flown by “mercenaries from Belarus”.

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