GRAND-BASSAM // Survivors of the first attack by extremists in Ivory Coast described scenes of confusion and fear as terrorists gunned down civilians at a south-eastern Ivory Coast resort town, east of Abidjan, killing 16 people.
Those who make a living off tourism believed the attack on Sunday would deal the industry a huge blow.
“Here, we work every day so foreigners can come here to relax. With all that has happened, I don’t think that the clients are going to come back now,” said Francois Tanoh, who rents beach chairs.
Frenchman Charles-Philippe d’Orleans said he and a friend were at the Grand-Bassam beach when he heard the first shot, and thought it was a firecracker. Then he heard a louder one.
A security guard told beachgoers not to worry, that some youths had tried to enter the paid-access beach and that another guard had fired his weapon into the air, said Mr d’Orleans.
But more shooting broke out and Mr d’Orleans and others hid behind a wall with gunmen “to the right, to the left, towards the road and towards the beach”. He and his friend sped away in a car when the gunfire receded.
“Afterwards we said, ‘Wow, we actually escaped something big.’ ”
Alassane Ouattara, president of the Ivory Coast, was to hold an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday to respond to the attack by Al Qaeda.
The attack on Grand-Bassam was the first of its kind in the country. Officials had been bracing for one after similar assaults by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — the north African branch of the terror group — in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali.
Despite heightened security measures in recent months, the extremists attacked civilians at one of the country's top destinations for Ivorians and foreigners, but the security forces responded quickly. Ivorian newspapers featured graphic photos of dead bodies sprawled on the beach. The headline on Le Patriote, read: "We are Grand-Bassam!"
“These terrorist attacks can happen anywhere, at any time,” Mr Ouattara said after visiting the Etoile du Sud hotel, one of three hotels where gunmen opened fire. “We have shown that we have the capacity to contain the damage that can result.”
French foreign affairs minister Jean-Marc Ayrault will travel to the West Africa country Monday with interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve. A French citizen was killed in the attack.
French president Francois Hollande condemned the raid as cowardly and odious.
The 16 dead included 14 civilians and two Ivorian special forces soldiers, Mr Ouattara said. Six assailants were also killed and at least 22 people — 19 civilians and three special forces troops — were wounded.
Ivorian interior minister Hamed Bakayoko said the 14 civilian victims came from countries including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, France, Germany and Mali. The death toll could rise, he said.
Officials were not providing information on the attackers, although the authorities were in possession of mobile phones and other evidence that would allow them “to go to the source” of the attack, Mr Bakayoko said.
The Grand-Bassam incident was the third major attack on a tourism centre in West Africa since last November. Dozens of people were killed in a siege at a Malian hotel that month and an assault on a hotel and cafe in Burkina Faso in January.
The authorities had taken steps to prepare the country for an attack, said Mr Bakayoko, crediting their work with reducing the loss of life on Sunday.
“There was anticipation. You know that our country has been targeted for a few years. We did whatever we could,” he said, adding that security forces had responded within 30 minutes and that the assailants had been killed within two hours.
Sites in Grand-Bassam were among more than 100 that had been under surveillance in recent months, Mr Bakayoko said, and those measures were going to continue.
* Associated Press
