By Kate Davenport BBC, Abidjan

Just hours after Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo pledged to stop attacks on West African immigrants, shops and warehouses were burnt down in the Abidjan suburb of Macaci.

Everything has gone up in smoke. What are we supposed to do now?

Ivorian mechanic

It is an industrial area of town, on the road between Adjame and Abobo - two districts of Abidjan housing large numbers of West African immigrants.

But it also houses many Ivorians, many of whom are bewildered at the latest attacks.

Their small roadside businesses have been literally burned to the ground.

Account

When I arrived there, I found the traders picking through the charred remains of their burnt-out shops.

Traders look through the wreckage of their stalls

One garage owner, an Ivorian from Agboville in the south-east, said the attack began at 0100 local time on Wednesday morning.

"The people parked their vehicles and set fire to the area, " he told me.

"Our guards couldn't do anything, because the people who torched our place were armed. They shot in the air and cleared the area.

"Those who lived on the other side of the road, came out to look since the flames were burning, very strongly. But they were chased away with gunfire. So they were forced to leave."

He said when he arrived on Wednesday morning at his garage everything had gone up in smoke.

"Everything we had here was burned. They were dressed in military gear, uniformed, security forces."

Bewilderment

Many of them, mechanics, carpenters, joiners, scrap merchants, said they had now been ruined, having lost all their tools and their livelihoods.

A Togolese metalworker said he had lost everything:

"I've lost my hammer, screwdriver, ruler, planer, saw, drill, everything.

"We can't do anything without the tools of our trade, we can't work with our bare hands."

Another young man, an Ivorian mechanic, was bewildered by the attack.

"There are Ivorians here as well as foreigners. What they've done here is affecting a whole social class, Ivorians and foreigners.

"And all I'd like to ask, is that if they're going to do this kind of thing, they could at least warn us."

He said that even if they had been given 15 minutes warning they could have rescued their belongings

"Today we've got nothing left to eat, since this is where we were earning our little bit of bread. Everything has gone up in smoke."

"Now we are all forced to become delinquents, to turn to crime."

The fate of these people, whose small businesses, jobs and papers have gone up in smoke, is unclear.

But, as reports of armed robberies and carjackings in Abidjan continue to escalate, many fear they will, indeed, be forced to turn to crime.