Thank you mrrzy, everything is getting back to normal now. We've managed to send some money to the family via Western Union, as their bureaux are open now. Rice was getting low. We've also managed to send the money for a cataract operation for my husband's uncle. He travelled 24hrs in a bus to Mali, to Bamako. (He collected the cash from Western Union there, as their offices were all open of course.) He's now back home in Abidjan, and...HE CAN SEE!! We're overjoyed for him. He's been blind for 10 years.
About the 'slaves' on the cocoa plantations, my husband says there are indeed many, bought from Mali and Burkina Faso, young lads who have been promised a better life, and are then locked in sheds at night and forced to toil on the plantations by day. Their lives are pitiable.