By Peter Murphy

ABIDJAN, June 23 (Reuters) - Victims of deadly toxic waste dumped around Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan last year, killing 16 and making thousands ill, rejected on Saturday a compensation offer from President Laurent Gbagbo and demanded to meet him. Millions of dollars are due to be paid next week to victims who suffered breathing problems, vomiting and diarrhoea after slops were unloaded from a ship chartered by Dutch-based oil trader Trafigura and dumped in open air sites last August.

But Denis Papira Yao, head of the Fenavidet-CI umbrella organisation of waste victims' associations, said they found the offer of $408 dollars per non-hospitalised victim "an insult".

"It's insignificant. It would be better to give them nothing at all," he told Reuters by telephone.

"If the President won't meet with us and still wants to apply this, the victims will oppose this by every means."

Yao said victims were angry the state had claimed more than two-thirds of a $198 million settlement Trafigura reached with the government earlier this year. They want the government to allocate more of the funds to them.

Despite the financial settlement, Trafigura has denied any wrongdoing, saying it entrusted the waste, which it described as residues from gasoline mixed with caustic washings, to a registered Ivorian company.

In the plan announced by the presidency on Friday, the families of those who died after exposure to the waste's fumes will each receive 100 million CFA ($205,100) while the 75 who were hospitalised will each receive 2 million CFA ($4,102).

Up to 101,000 people who were listed as having sought medical care without being hospitalised will each be eligible to claim the $408 sum upon producing identification.

But the government will claim 68.7 billion CFA ($140.9 million) to recoup the cost of still-unfinished depollution, to upgrade hospitals, build a domestic refuse processing plant and fund community projects.

"The state should first of all look after the sick, then look at what can be done for the state," Yao said.

A British court agreed earlier this year to hear a class action case which law firm Leigh Day & Co brought against Trafigura. In a statement on Friday lawyer Martyn Day said he would pursue the private claims for compensation.

Ivory Coast said this week it was seeking an extra initial $82 million and a maximum of $461 million from Trafigura to cover additional depollution and medical costs stemming from the waste dumping case. Trafigura is disputing the figure.

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