the soldiers not being paid by the government. The rebels continued to fight from 1998 to 1999. President Vieira was ousted on 7 May 1999. By 10 May 1999, the war ended when President Vieira signed an unconditional surrender in a Portuguese embassy. Approximately 655 were killed as a result of the conflict. First Ivorian Civil War (2002-2007) In the early 2000s, the Ivory Coast (also known as Côte d'Ivoire) experienced an economic rescission. The rescission began as a result of the previous economic boom crashing the economy as a whole. This led to the predominantly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south of the Ivory Coast becoming politically divided. The southern Ivory Coast was in control of the Ivorian government. The north however, was under the power of the rebel movement. The civil war between the two began officially on 19 September 2002 when rebels launched a series of attacks on the south. The city of Abidjan was primarily targeted. Northern rebels were successful in the attacks. As a result of the chaos, president Robert Guéï was killed in the rebellions. The south retailed with military action. France supported the south and sent 2500 soldiers to the region and called for United Nations action. French action in the area went under the guise and codename of Opération Licorne. By 2004 most fighting in the region ceased. On 4 March 2007 the civil war official ended with the signing of a peace treaty. Second Ivorian Civil War (2010-2011) Historiographic and Conceptual Problems of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa Historiographic and Conceptual Problems The current major problem in African studies that Mohamed (2010/2012) identified is the inherited religious, Orientalist, colonial paradigm that European Africanists have preserved in present-day secularist, post-colonial, Anglophone African historiography. African and African-American scholars also bear some responsibility in perpetuating this European Africanist preserved paradigm. Following conceptualizations of Africa developed by Leo Africanus and Hegel, European Africanists conceptually separated continental Africa into two racialized regions – Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa, as a racist geographic construction, serves as an objectified, compartmentalized region of "Africa proper", "Africa noire," or "Black Africa." The African diaspora is also considered to be a part of the same racialized construction as Sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa serves as a racialized region of "European Africa", which is conceptually disconnected from Sub-Saharan Africa, and conceptually connected to the Middle East, Asia, and the Islamic world.