Mortar fire thundered through the capital Monday as government troops battled militiamen. France poured in soldiers, and U.S. officials tried to negotiate a truce so that foreigners could safely flee.
Militiamen loyal to the Republic of Congo's former military leader, Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso, appeared to have gained the upper hand in Brazzaville in five days of fighting.Civilians fleeing across the Congo River in private planes and canoes to neighboring Congo, formerly Zaire, said Sassou-Nguesso's soldiers controlled the building housing radio and TV broadcasters.
His 5,000-member militia expanded its control from northern strongholds to the city center. French Embassy spokesman Alexis Jaraud said government soldiers held the area south of Brazzaville.
Amid the fighting, looters ransacked shops and departed with furniture and TV sets balanced on their heads, evacuees said.
Violence broke out last week when government soldiers, fearing attempts to disrupt next month's presidential elections, tried to disarm Sassou-Nguesso's militia.
Sassou-Nguesso ruled the former French colony for more than a decade until he was forced to introduce political reforms in 1991. Elections in 1992 installed Pascal Lissouba as president, but the rivalry between the two continued.
Thousands of U.S. and European troops had been stationed in Brazzaville only weeks ago during the civil war in neighboring Congo. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila captured Kinshasa, the former Zairian capital, with relative ease and all but a few hundred French troops departed.
Today, France sent a C-130 cargo plane to Brazzaville with armed vehicles for its forces, and about 500 French soldiers were deployed from neighboring Central African Republic and Gabon.
In Kinshasa, a 20-minute canoe ride across the river, the sounds of heavy fighting could be heard past midnight and early Monday.
The fighting was concentrated in central Brazzaville, Jaraud said, and many buildings had been hit. The amount of heavy artillery being fired made casualties likely, he said, but it was impossible to determine the number of deaths.
In Paris, the French Defense Ministry said its forces had evacuated 460 French nationals to Libreville, Gabon, this morning. No other foreigners were with them, the ministry said.
About 100 other foreigners, half of them Americans, were evacuated on planes chartered by the U.S. Embassy between Saturday and early Sunday, when heavy street fighting forced the embassy to suspend the flights.
Americans who took the five-minute shuttle flight to Kinshasa described artillery exchanges in Brazzaville and residents cowering in their homes.
"It seemed everybody had a gun," American missionary Joseph Harvey said.
He said people streamed past his home with televisions, furniture, "even kitchen sinks" balanced on their heads. "Women were standing by watching and laughing. It was like a party."