LAGOS, Sept 27 (AFP) - A meeting of west African leaders to discuss the
fighting in the Ivory Coast has been moved to Ghana, officials from the
regional grouping ECOWAS said Friday, confirming a Sengalese statment.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had first planned
to hold the meeting in Dakar next week, but then moved it forward to Sunday
in Abidjan, before finally plumping for Accra.
"I'm at the airport trying to get my flight to Accra now, I hope they
don't change the venue again," said a senior ECOWAS source.
"We hope that all the regional leaders will be there. They have said
they will be, but with the venue changing so often it's hard to be sure,"
the source, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Another official said ECOWAS executive secretary Mohammed Ibn Chambas
and senior staff were in the Togolese capital Lome and preparing to travel
to Ghana.
Earlier the office of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, current
ECOWAS chairman, had said: "At the invitation of ... John Kufuor, president
of the Republic of Ghana, the extraordinary ECOWAS summit on the situation
in Ivory Coast will take place in Accra on Sunday."
Fighting broke out last week in Ivory Coast after a group of soldiers
mutinied in protest at their imminent demobilisation. The government
described the mutiny as a failed coup attempt.
The rebels now hold at least three northern towns and at least 300
people have been killed in fighting between mutineers and loyalist troops.
Nigeria said Thursday that it had sent three jet fighters to Ivory Coast
as the vanguard of a possible west African intervention source, which
ECOWAS could choose to send to help the Ivorian authorities.
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