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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

BURKINA FASO: Common border finally re-opens

ABIDJAN, 11 September 2003 (IRIN) - A year after a failed coup attempt in Cote d'Ivoire strained relations with neighbouring Burkina Faso, the two West African countries re-opened their common border in a low-key ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

"There was no official ceremony, just a few directives ordering the reopening," a source in the Burkina capital, Ouagadougou told IRIN. Traffic was allowed across the border at 15:30 GMT.

The re-opening of the border, which was delayed earlier this year pending the resolution of security concerns, followed a visit by a Burkina Faso delegation to the Ivorian economic capital of Abidjan on Tuesday.

Cote d'Ivoire closed its border with Burkina Faso on 19 September 2002 as mutinous soldiers attempted to overthrow President Laurent Gbagbo's government. A rebellion followed in which the mutinous soldiers seized control of the northern and eastern parts of the country.

Gbagbo accused Burkina Faso officials of supporting the rebellion. However in the last few months, both countries have attempted to mend fences.

Nearly 30 percent of Burkina Faso's population depend on cross border trade with Cote d'Ivoire for survival, while thousands of Burkinabe worked in Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa and coffee plantations.

At least 350,000 of the workers however fled back to Burkina during the rebellion, following widespread harassment of "foreigners" by security personnel, especially in "shanty towns" where most of the migrants lived in Abidjan's suburbs.

The closure also affected landlocked Mali, Cote d'Ivoire's other northern neighbour, although Cote d'Ivoire left that border open.

Commercial trucks resumed plying between the two countries in June, carrying goods and agricultural produce to local markets, but the border remained officially closed.

The French-owned train company, SITARAIL, which ceased cross-border operations and would be one of the main beneficiaries of the border-reopening, also resumed minimal services but within Cote d'Ivoire in June. Its trains went as far as the town of Dimbokro, 249 km north of the economic capital Abidjan.

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