Ghana To Send Troops To Ivory Coast

Ghana and Nigeria put troops on standby and agreed to send warplanes to Ivory Coast on Thursday as key West African states rallied to help put down a week-long military uprising.

French and US troops in Ivory Coast were also at the ready to rescue foreigners caught in the conflict which has taken on more the dimensions of a civil war than what the government calls an attempted coup. The renegades describe it as a protest over army retirements.

Rebel troops launched pre-dawn attacks in three key Ivorian cities a week ago. While loyalists dislodged them from the main city of Abidjan, they have kept control of the central town of Bouake, and Korhogo further north.

Nigeria's junior foreign minister Dubem Onyia said the Nigerian and Ghanaian forces were being sent following a request from Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, chair of the Economic Community of West African States, Ecowas.

He said it was in line with the bloc's decision to uphold democracy in the volatile region.

Bodies

"We are doing it under the auspices of Ecomog," Onyia said, referring to the Nigerian-led military wing of the bloc. He added that Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo had approved the intervention.

"Ecowas has decided that any government that has to be changed must be changed through the ballot box, and we are acting to prop up the elected government in Ivory Coast," Onyia said.

In Bouake, a Reuters correspondent reported that scores of bodies lay scattered in a military academy after heavy fighting in the West African country's second city on Tuesday.

"I was able to count 112 bodies. They were everywhere, lying in rooms and on paths. I was only even able to look into a few of the rooms," said Reuters correspondent Fiacre Vidjingninou.

Bouake was largely calm overnight for the first time in a week. "It's the status quo now after Tuesday's attack. We are on our toes, but we don't expect them to try to come back immediately," said rebel corporal George Kouassi.

Well over 300 people have been killed in the crisis.