Rebels shot and killed two French troops in Ivory Coast, marking France's first combat deaths in peacekeeping efforts in its former colony after a nine-month civil war, the French military said yesterday.
A third French soldier was wounded in the exchange of gunfire late Monday in central Ivory Coast, French military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Salle said, speaking in Abidjan, the commercial capital.
There was no firm word on casualties on the rebel side. Salle said the French returned fire in the clash, and believed at least one rebel was killed.
France has 4,000 troops in Ivory Coast, leading efforts to keep the peace after a war begun with a failed coup in September. While the conflict was officially declared over in July, tensions remain strong.
Monday's clash occurred in a buffer zone in the center of the country, where peace troops are deployed between rebel forces to the north and government forces to the south.
French forces were in a boat, on newly launched patrols to secure Lake Kossou, 40km south of the rebel stronghold of Bouake, Salle said.
The French pulled up shortly before sunset in the village of Sakassou and were talking with villagers when "well-armed rebels" in a pickup truck suddenly pulled up, the French spokesman said.
Citing survivor accounts, Salle said the rebels appeared to be drunk or on drugs, as is frequent with combatants in West Africa.
French and rebels got into a heated exchange, he said. When French forces started to leave, the rebels opened fire, Salle said.
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