Abidjan Gangs Demand Ransom to Free Lebanese Families as Official Delegation Heads to Accra

Thirty Lebanese families are besieged at a factory in Abidjan and the gangs are demanding 60,000 dollars to release them, Lebanon’s ambassador to the Ivory Coast told As Safir daily published Thursday.

U.N. troops “have promised to help us today,” Ambassador Ali Ajami said.

A Lebanese community member, Mehdi Hamdan, also told As Safir that around 500 Lebanese families are besieged in the area of Cocody near the Nigerian television headquarters. “Their condition is bad,” he said.

Around 136 Lebanese nationals arrived home on Wednesday. They had been taken from Abidjan by French military planes to Lomé, traveling overland to Ghana before boarding the Middle East Airlines flight to Beirut.

Another plane with 262 people on board, including 176 Lebanese, arrived at Rafik Hariri international airport at noon Thursday.

A source at the Lebanese foreign ministry told As Safir that U.S. military planes transported hundreds of foreigners from Abidjan to Accra on Wednesday. Among them are several Lebanese.

Three other French military planes evacuated civilians, including Lebanese citizens, to Lomé, Cotonou and Dakar, the source said.

According to the foreign ministry source, around 24 Lebanese arrived by land to Burkina Faso on Wednesday night. Another 50 Lebanese nationals headed from Abidjan in the same direction in an overland trip that takes more than 10 hours.

Meanwhile, the first death of a Lebanese national was reported after the body of Raef Hussein Borgi, 60, was found on an Abidjan street, a newspaper said.

But the death was not officially confirmed. His brother denied to Voice of Lebanon radio that the man had died.

The news came as an official delegation headed to Accra on Thursday to follow up the situation of Lebanese and make the necessary contacts with the U.N. and European countries to help in the evacuation process.