Western diplomats suggested last night that Laurent Gbagbo’s Ivory Coast regime could fall “within hours” after his military chief of staff defected.
The defection came as opposition troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, who won the presidential election in November, encircled Abidjan, the country’s principal city, while Gbagbo loyalists broke open prisons and armed convicts to fight.
General Philippe Mangou fled with his wife and five children to the home of the South African Ambassador on Wednesday. The South African Foreign Ministry said that they had accepted them on “humanitarian grounds”.
The general’s departure raises doubts over whether the army, which has propped up Mr Gbagbo’s regime, will stay intact. Mr Gbagbo was expected to address the nation last night.
A Western diplomat told The Times: “Even if a fight is put up, Gbagbo’s backers are looking at the three d’s — defeat, desertions and defections. It could be over within a matter of hours.”
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The diplomat said that Mr Gbagbo would be “delusional” to cling to power.
General Mangou has long been considered a puppet of Mr Gbagbo and has been openly courted by Mr Ouattara’s government, who say that he had been “held hostage” for months.
His flight has encouraged further defections as many fear that the republican forces may join with the pro-Ouattara insurgency. It emerged yesterday that at least two other high-profile army staff deserted. The chief of the elite gendarmerie police fled to the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, where Mr Ouattara has been under UN protection since the November polls.
“As soon as I heard the news about Mangou, I went home and put on my civilian clothes,” said a soldier who spoke under condition of anonymity. “Even if we’d wanted to, we couldn’t even find our captain.”.
An eerie silence descended over Abidjan yesterday, punctuated only by long bursts of gunfire and the boom of mortar explosions. Fighting was fiercest around the state-owned television station and the presidential palace where Mr Gbagbo is believed to have hunkered down.
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Troops from France’s 900-strong contingent in Ivory Coast were deployed around the city. They took up position at crossroads and on main arteries after reports of attacks on French nationals by pro-Gbagbo mobs. France has maintained a garrison since intervening in the last civil war in 2002.
The French Government, which has been involved in efforts to solve the crisis in the former colony, urged Mr Gbagbo to “pay heed to the message” in the resolution of the UN Security Council on Wednesday that called on him to stand down. “He and those close to him must hear this message and stop shedding the blood of their compatriots,” the French Foreign Ministry said. President Sarkozy has called a session with key Cabinet Ministers tomorrow morning to review the situation.