Fighting hits west Ivory Coast, rebels deny role

Fighting erupted in a strategic town in western Ivory Coast on Wednesday, killing at least two, but rebels who back presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara denied involvement. Residents of Duekoue reported several hours of heavy and small arms fire in the town, which has seen years tensions but has remained under the control of incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo since a 2002-3 war divided the country.
Rebels who seized the north of the country during the war and who now back Ouattara, internationally-recognised winner of a November poll that Gbagbo refuses to cede, denied involvement. "Two (civilians) who were running away from the fighting and the shooting were hit by stray bullets and died," said Amara Kone, a Duekoue resident who said he saw the bodies.
"The town is very calm. Everyone has returned home. Now we just hear from time to time the shooting of heavy weapons and machineguns," Kone, a local cocoa cooperative manager, added. Thousands of people fled to the local Catholic mission to seek shelter, one resident said. Other towns in Ivory Coast's west have been fought over since the post-election power struggle began. Duekoue is the most strategically important as sits on the main road from the west to the cocoa-producing centre-west regions.
A number of local conflicts over land, ethnicity and the use of mercenaries during the war have long simmered around Duekoue. New Forces (FN) rebels have gained some ground after threatening a push south to try and resolve a power struggle that has brought the country to the brink of a new civil war and strangled the flow of cocoa beans from the world's top grower.
Residents earlier reported heavy weapons fire coming from the centre of Duekoue and the road heading towards Guiglo, to the southwest, but could not say who was involved. "Our forces are not involved in the fighting in Duekoue. I cam promise you that," Lacine Mara, rebel spokesman for the zone of Man said by telephone. Aside from the rebels and regular pro-Gbagbo forces, militia groups are also operating in the country and analysts have pointed to indications of mercenaries at large.
The violence has driven cocoa futures to 30-year highs on world markets while the UN estimates some 400 people have been killed and another 450,000 forced from their homes.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has said atrocities committed by forces loyal to Gbagbo have been organised on a scale that may constitute war crimes, while gunmen backing Ouattara were also accused of executions. Citing a grenade attack that killed one and wounded 18, the UN peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast on Wednesday called for an end to the escalation of violence.