Terrified residents fled sporadic shooting in an Abidjan neighbourhood on Thursday and fighting erupted in Ivory Coast's west in an escalation of a post-poll power struggle that threatens to re-ignite civil war. The spread of clashes in the world's top cocoa grower comes amid faltering diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute between incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and rival Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised as the winner of a November election.
Over 300 people have been killed since then and worsening insecurity this week propelled cocoa futures to 30-year highs. Hearing reports of pro-Gbagbo reinforcements going in, hundreds of residents, with bags piled on their heads, streamed out of Abidjan's Abobo neighbourhood, the scene of two days of fierce clashes between forces loyal to Gbagbo and Ouattara. "We heard explosions and shots. We were not able to sleep because of it, even when it stopped. We were too scared," said Akissi Konan, a 36-year-old mother of three on the road.
"We wanted to flee but we were scared to we waited until the sun rose before leaving the house," she added, clutching her youngest child to a sweat-soaked T-shirt. People of all ages piled into vehicles leaving the pro-Ouattara neighbourhood, where houses and walls are peppered with small arms fire and, in places, destroyed by heavy weapons. Gbagbo has rejected calls to step down despite UN-certified election results showing that Ouattara won the November 28 poll, which was meant to reunify the country but has instead re-opened bitter divisions from the 2002-3 war.
The economy has ground to a halt as sanctions bite. Fighting broke out overnight in the west of the country, near the frontline between the two factions as well as the border with Guinea and Liberia, two nations trying to recover from their own instability and conflict.