French troops save American children held in Ivory Coast

About 300 US special forces soldiers landed in Ivory Coast yesterday as French troops rescued 100 American children who had been cut off at an isolated mission school by a military uprising.

The Foreign Office has been making contingency plans to remove a small number of British citizens if the security situation deteriorates.

Two C-130 cargo planes landed in Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, which had been the staging area for the French mission into the besieged rebel-held city of Bouaké earlier in the day. About 500,000 residents are awaiting a government offensive to retake the country's second city.

"Our idea is to get as many out [of Bouaké] as possible," said Richard Buangan, an American diplomat helping to co-ordinate the operation.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said there were about 460 British citizens in Ivory Coast, of whom 11 were in Bouaké. The spokesman said French soldiers had secured the city's International Christian Academy yesterday and that the 11 Britons, and about 1,000 other foreign nationals, were being taken to the safety of the school by the French troops.

"The vice-consul has been in touch with all 11 of the British citizens," said the spokesman. "We are in touch with our French and US colleagues, and we are monitoring the situation." Asked if there was a contingency plan for pulling out the 11 Britons if the position worsened, he said: "There are always arrangements in place but we don't talk about them." Yesterday about 100 French soldiers broke through to Bouaké's outskirts to reach the American-led academy. Two hundred foreigners, including about 100 Americans, had been trapped at the white-washed mission compound.

Colonel Charles de Kersabiec, of the French army, said: "[Children and staff] are perfectly secure and are protected by our forces." The rush to rescue Westerners comes as the Ivory Coast government is struggling to retake two cities, Bouaké and the northern opposition stronghold of Korhogo, which was lost to insurgents after last Thursday's coup attempt. At least 270 people died in the first days of the uprising.

Bouaké residents who spoke to reporters by telephone yesterday said rebels still controlled the city and were cruising the streets in commandeered vehicles. Water and electricity had been cut since the weekend, most shops were shut and the prices of food and fuel were soaring.

"Everyone is at home. We're running out of everything," said one woman. "We are scared." In Korhogo, rebels armed with guns and rocket-launchers went house to house, confiscating guns and rounding up any paramilitary police and soldiers not yet captured.

Trapped in their houses, with no sign of a long-promised government offensive to rout the rebels, residents were becoming increasingly frustrated. "All my activities are paralysed. I'm having trouble feeding my family," said a mechanic, Souleymane Coulibaly. "If this continues, it is us who will go dislodge the mutineers." The uprising, which began with a core group of 800 ex-soldiers angry at their dismissal from the army for suspected disloyalty, poses Ivory Coast's worst crisis since the country's first coup in 1999 shattered stability in the once-prosperous country. President Laurent Gbagbo has pledged to expel the rebels from Bouaké and Korhogo. Military leaders say only concern for civilians has stalled the assault on Bouaké. About 20,000 French and thousands of other Westerners live in Ivory Coast, the economic powerhouse of the former French West Africa. None is thought to be among those killed.

Experts say the thousands of guest workers from neighbouring Muslim countries are far more vulnerable than Westerners in the uprising, which has revived rivalries between the mainly Muslim north and the largely Christian south.