US Troops Evacuate Americans from Cote d'Ivoire's Besieged City

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 26, 2002

US Troops Evacuate Americans from Cote d'Ivoire's Besieged City

The United States troops Wednesday evacuated all American school children trapped by fighting at a school in Cote d' Ivoire's central city of Bouake.

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The United States troops Wednesday evacuated all American school children trapped by fighting at a school in Cote d' Ivoire's central city of Bouake.

The 160 American children, ranging in age from infancy to 12, had been trapped at the International Christian Academy, which serves the children of missionaries in west Africa.

About 40 other foreigners also were held up in the school. The Americans and other foreigners, including those from Canada and the Netherlands, left Bouake on vehicles heading on the road to Yamoussoukro, Cote d' Ivoire' s administrative capital and 100 km south of Bouake.

An armored column of French troops arrived on Wednesday in the country's second largest city and set up a security zone to the east including the Baptist school before midday (1200 GMT).

The US special forces landed early on Wednesday in Yamoussoukroand entered the besieged city of Bouake after flying from Ghana's capital Accra.

Bouake Wednesday witnessed fierce gunbattles between the loyalist troops and rebel soldiers with bursts of gunfire and the boom of anti-tank rockets.

Bouake and Korhogo, the key northern city en route to the border with Burkina Faso, have been in rebel hands since the breakout of bloody coup last Thursday, while other important townsheading north are also under rebel control.

The bloody uprising, which claimed at least 270 lives and displaced thousands of people, has plunged the west African country into its worst crisis since independence from France in 1960.

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