Westerners Trapped Amid Ivory Coast Coup

French troops today arrived at a mission school in the Ivory Coast to rescue over 100 western schoolchildren trapped there after rebels took the city in an attempted coup.

"I can confirm French troops have arrived on the campus," said Neil Gilliland of the Nashville, Tennessee-based Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions. He said the students and staff were "very happy" to see the French soldiers.

About 200 foreigners, most of them American, have been trapped on the campus of the International Christian Academy in the country's second largest city, Bouake, since Thursday.

About 100 American children and a smaller number of Dutch and Canadian children, aged between five and 18 years old, were on campus at the time of the coup attempt.

The well-armed French forces arrived in number and secured the school, school security officer Mike Cousineau told the Nashville base.

French forces in Ivory Coast, a former French colony, have deployed hundreds of troops, trucks, and helicopters in the central capital, Yamoussoukro, to rescue westerners from Bouake if needed.

The missionaries at the school have sent out increasingly fervent calls for help since Monday night, when rebels breached the walls of the school and fired from its grounds. No students or staff have been reported injured.

At least 270 people have died in the week since the coup attempt. The uprising was led by a core group of 750-800 ex-soldiers angry over their dismissal from the army for suspected disloyalty. It is the country's worst crisis since the first-ever coup in 1999 shattered stability in the Ivory Coast.

President Laurent Gbagbo has pledged a full-scale battle to oust the rebels from Bouake and the other rebel-held city, Korhogo. Military leaders say only concern for civilians has stalled the assault on Bouake.

Frightened residents in the rebel-held areas have begun to run out of essential supplies. Water and electricity had been cut in Bouake since the weekend, most shops were closed, and food and fuel prices were skyrocketing, residents said. Few braved the rebel barricades thrown up across the city, home to half a million people.

"Everyone is at home. We're running out of everything," said one frightened Ivorian woman, speaking by telephone from her home. "We are scared."

In Korhogo, rebels armed with guns and rocket launchers went house to house, rounding up any paramilitary police and soldiers, and confiscating their weapons.

US military planes touched down before dawn today at the Kotoka International airport in Accra, the capital of neighbouring Ghana, according to aviation officials there. Military officials indicated the deployment would be made up of just under 200 members of the US army and air force.

Four US military aircraft were dispatched, including three C-130 cargo planes, a senior official with Ghana's foreign ministry said. The Accra airport was expected to be used as a staging area for any US rescue missions.

The UK also sent about eight British soldiers to the Ivory Coast today, although ministry of defence officials said the government had no immediate plans to evacuate British citizens. The soldiers are there to assess what would be required to ensure the safety of British residents.

The around one dozen Britons believed to be holed up in Bouake and Korhogo, are "safe and well", a foreign office spokeswoman said.

"Our embassy staff are in contact with them and they have been advised to stay indoors and monitor the situation locally.

"There are no plans to evacuate them at this stage. Other citizens in the Ivory Coast are asked to lead as normal a life as possible and adhere to the curfews between 8pm and 6am," she said.

There are around 460 British nationals living in the Ivory Coast, but most are in the main cities of Abidjan and the capital Yamoussoukro. The foreign office has advised that no one should travel to the Ivory Coast while the problems continue.