Thousands flee fighting in Ivory Coast city

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast -- Thousands of people, many carrying cooking pots and bundles of clothes, fled this rebel-held city during a lull in fighting Thursday to escape food shortages and roaming gangs that burned people alive.\nThe exodus from Ivory Coast's second-largest city followed three days of fighting between government forces and rebels who seized half the country in a bloody Sept. 19 coup attempt.\n"We aren't used to war. There was firing every day," said Roland Loukou, a 29-year-old leaving town with a plastic sack stuffed with belongings. "Bullets came through the walls and through the windows."\nThe refugees streamed along a paved road between Bouake and a French military position 12 miles to the east. Others fled the city of 500,000 on paths into the bush and a second road leading east.\nResidents have flooded from the city in recent days, but the flow has increased, French military officials said. France has troops in Ivory Coast, its former colony, to protect French and other foreigners.\nThose who fled Bouake said young recruits, armed by the rebels, hunted down residents suspected of supporting the government and burned them alive. Residents said the attacks appeared to have been retaliation for killings carried out earlier by government supporters.\nWith food supplies running low, many of those fleeing Bouake said they would try to reach the country's coastal commercial capital, Abidjan.\nBouake, which was rocked by heavy explosions and gunfire in a government offensive earlier in the week, appeared quiet Thursday. French officials said the city remained entirely rebel-held.\nSpeaking on state television, Ivorian army Col. Jules Yao Yao said front lines were "very calm." He credited a pullback by government forces. Other accounts suggest the loyalist troops were pushed back by the insurgents.\nUnder international pressure, President Laurent Gbagbo agreed in principle to talks with the rebels, but then said the insurgents first had to disarm. The rebels have refused.