Over the last four days, ECOFORCE contingents from Benin, Niger, Senegal and Togo have taken over from French troops along the 600-km buffer zone line, which stretches from the area around Bondoukou (close to the border with Ghana) to the Sassandra River in the western part of the country.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) claims that "near catastrophic conditions prevail" in the north-eastern part of the country, and that a convoy of relief supplies has been dispatched to the area. Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, Mohammed Ahmad al-Rasheed, was found dead two floors down from his Adibjan apartment. The circumstances surrounding his death were not immediately clear.