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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - French forces opened fire Tuesday as protesters massed between the Ivory Coast president's home and an evacuation post for foreigners. A hospital reported seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded.
French military officials said they were assessing the events, and refused immediate comment.
At least four days of confrontations have killed at least 20 other people, wounded 700 and shut down cocoa exports from the world's largest producer.
The clash took place as thousands of loyalists massed outside the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, next to a hotel that the French have converted into a temporary evacuation center.
(AP) Pro-government demonstrators with national flags protest in front of the French-commandee el...
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Dr. Sie Podipte at Cocody Hospital said the facility was treating more than 200 wounded and that seven people had died.
South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Gbagbo earlier Tuesday, launching an African effort to rein in chaos that has erupted in this west African nation.
The U.N. Security Council, African Union, European Union and a bloc of West African leaders have all condemned Gbagbo's government in the violence, which began when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on the rebel-held north.
France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, wiped out the nation's small air force in retaliation, sparking anti-French rampages by mobs of thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.
Mbeki said Gbagbo had recommitted to tension-easing measures agreed to in past accords in the country's civil war. A year-old cease-fire ended last week when the government opened three days of bombing of the rebel-held north.
(AP) Pro-government demonstrators protest holding up a placard reading "(French President Jacques)...
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Mbeki declared himself "really very, very pleased" and said he would report back to the African Union for consultations on its next steps in the crisis.
Talks took place at Gbagbo's home.
Some of the 1,300 French and other foreign civilians evacuated from their homes by the French military amid looting and burning stared out at the protesters from a protective ring of barbed wire around the hotel.
"We are not going to leave," one loyalist outside the French temporary base said, adding that protesters would take shifts to eat. "If I get the French, I can eat them," he said.
Protesters tried to pull down the barbed wire around the French evacuation point but scattered when two French snipers moved forward and drew beads on them.
(AP) French troops watch pro-government demonstrators in front of the commandee el Ivoire in the...
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After securing Abidjan's airport and bridges over the weekend, French forces on Tuesday appeared to have withdrawn from at least one main bridge in the lagoon-bordered city.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman saw a crowd surround one U.N. vehicle that ventured onto the bridge and kick it until the car withdrew.
Cocoa traders said the violence has shut down cocoa exports, closing ports that ship more than 40 percent of the world's raw material for chocolate.
Clashes that have pitted the government and supporters against French forces come at the peak of Ivory Coast's main harvest, with overall production last year at 1.4 million tons.
Violence has closed the country's two main ports, in Abidjan and San Pedro, since Saturday afternoon, traders and other officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.
(AP) A French army vehicle in front of a large convoy observes pro government demonstrators while...
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Cocoa buyers are not venturing out into the bush to buy cocoa, they said.
On Monday, top Ivory Coast and French generals jointly appealed for protesters to go home despite a day of urgent alarms on state radio and TV asking loyalists to mass at Gbagbo's home and a nearby broadcast center.
The TV and radio appeals came after French armored vehicles moved into position at the commandee el Ivoire, with one armored vehicle at one point making a wrong turn and approaching Gbagbo's house directly, the French acknowledged.
"Everything should go back to normal. ... It is absolutely not a matter of ousting President Laurent Gbagbo," French mission commander Gen. Henri Poncet said on state TV, alongside Ivory Coast army chief of staff Gen. Mathias Doue.
French leaders have said they hold Gbagbo - installed in an uprising by his supporters in 2000, after an aborted vote count in presidential elections - personally responsible in the airstrike Saturday and subsequent anti-foreigner rampages.
(AP) French armoured vehiclesare in position outside the Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan, Ivory Coast Monday,...
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French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, after a visit Monday to wounded French servicemen flown to Paris for medical care, said their witness accounts suggested the attack was premeditated.
"They all told me that the Ivorian plane passed two times over the (French military base) building and fired on the third pass," she told reporters at St. Mande military hospital outside Paris.
At the United Nations, Security Council diplomats late Monday weighed a French-backed draft resolution for an arms embargo on Ivory Coast and a travel ban and asset freeze against those blocking peace, violating human rights, and preventing the disarmament of combatants.
France has 4,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, where a civil war launched in September 2002 has split the nation between rebel north and loyalist south.
About 6,000 U.N. troops also are deployed to man a buffer zone and try to keep the peace in West Africa's former economic powerhouse, seen as vital to regional efforts to recover from 1990s civil wars.
The bombing of the French military post Saturday came on the third day of Ivory Coast airstrikes on rebel positions, breaking a more than year-old cease-fire.
Red Cross official Kim Gordon-Bates told The Associated Press that rampages in Abidjan alone had injured more than 600. Loyalist mobs on Monday blocked to set up an emergency clinic for the injured, he said.
Only partial death tolls are available, but at least 20 people had been killed - the 10 foreigners killed in the airstrike on Saturday, five loyalist protesters whose bodies were shown on state TV over the weekend, and five other fatally wounded protesters brought to two hospitals on Monday.
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