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Explosions resonated from the city's downtown core a few blocks from the presidential palace and near the base of the republican guard, and those living nearby barricaded their windows with mattresses. Flames could be seen licking the sky above the home of the staunchly pro-Gbagbo republican guard. Just after the U.N. announced their attack, a resident in the Cocody neighborhood where Gbagbo lives in Abidjan said he saw multiple helicopters circling and could hear firing. Others said they heard what sounded like fighter jets. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement that he had authorized the 1,600-strong French Licorne force based here to help in the operation following an appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said that the use of force was necessary to prevent further attacks on civilians. Ivory Coast gained independence from France in 1960, and some 20,000 French citizens still lived there when a brief civil war broke out in 2002. French troops were then tasked by the U.N. with monitoring a cease-fire and protecting foreign nationals in Ivory Coast, which was once an economic star and is still one of the only countries in the region with four-lane highways, skyscrapers, escalators and wine bars. Following four months of attempts to negotiate Gbagbo's departure, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed an especially strong resolution giving the 12,000-strong peacekeeping operation the right "to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence ... including to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population." Gbagbo, 65, has stubbornly refused every olive branch extended to him since last November, when he lost the presidential election to International Monetary Fund economist, Ouattara. Gbagbo insisted he had won, even though his country's own election commission declared him defeated and the United Nations certified his opponent's victory. Many people in Abidjan have not left their homes since last Wednesday, when Ouattara's fighters arrived on the perimeter of the city, and heavy clashes ensued. Barricaded inside her home, new mother Joceline Djaha, 24, said by telephone that she had stopped eating two days ago, when her stock ran out. For several days, her only food was boiled spaghetti
-- no sauce. In the two days since she's been out of food, her breast milk dried up. Her 1-year-old, she says, has become listless. "Please let this stop," said Djaha. "I can hold out without food. But I'm not sure my child can." Doctors Without Borders issued an urgent appeal Monday night for all warring factions to allow people to reach medical care. In a statement, the organization said a team of its doctors had been trapped since Thursday "due to the extremely dangerous conditions" at the only hospital still functioning in the northern half of the city, which includes Gbagbo's residence. They were treating 30 to 40 injured people daily, who made their way to the hospital by cart or other means, but gunfire and looting prevented helping others. "We get telephone calls asking us to come pick up wounded people and patients, but it's impossible to move around," said Dr. Sal-ha Issoufou, head of the doctors' mission in Abidjan.
Associated Press writers Jenny Barchfield in Paris, Michelle Faul in Accra, Ghana, Edith M. Lederer and Anita Snow at United Nations headquarters in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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