Renewed fighting in the west causes concern

About 40 civilians died on Tuesday when helicopter gunships attacked the rebel-held town of Danane in western Cote d'Ivoire, near the border with Liberia, humanitarian sources said, adding that another rebel town in the west, Bin-Houye, was bombarded by gunships on Sunday. The air raids had reportedly been preceded on Saturday by fighting in Bin-Houye between rebels and the Ivorian army. Military sources said yet another rebel-held town, Zouan-Hounien, had been recaptured by the armed forces from the rebels. Armed forces spokesman Lt Col Aka N'Goran said on Wednesday that loyalist forces had not carried out air attacks on the towns. "The governmental forces deny all attacks in the west," N'Goran told IRIN. The interim minister of defence, Assoa Adou, issued a communique dated 9 April in which he said it was "not the vocation of the defence forces to attack civilian populations". Without mentioning specific locations or dates, he said defence and security forces had been "forced to react to a massive attack by more than 500 men aboard some 60 vehicles to protect defenceless civilians". According to humanitarian sources, the insecurity in western Cote d'Ivoire has caused people to flee at a rate of about 50 persons a day over the past two or three weeks from affected areas to the town of Guiglo, 516 km west of Abidjan. The population of the Nicla refugee camp, just outside Guiglo, had increased from 3,300 to over 8,000, the sources said. The area affected by the most recent fighting is located along the border with Liberia in a zone which, over the past few months, has been under the control of the Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO - Ivorian Popular Movement of the Greater West). Danane, 626 km northwest of Abidjan, is where MPIGO's headquarters are located. Two other rebel groups operate in Cote d'Ivoire. The Mouvement pour la Justice et la Paix (MJP -Movement for Justice and Peace) controls the area around the western town of Man, 80 km northeast of Danane, and 578 km northwest of Abidjan. The Mouvement patriotique de Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI - Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire) controls much of northern Cote d'Ivoire. In northern Cote d'Ivoire, a ceasefire concluded in October 2002, about one month after the MPCI launched its insurgency, had largely held until this week. However, state television reported on Thursday that there had been fighting in the northeastern town of Boundoukou, which is near the border with Ghana. The outbreak of fighting along Cote d'Ivoire's borders with Liberia and Ghana has been seen by humanitarian and media sources as posing a major challenge for a newly formed government of national reconciliation expected to steer the country towards peace. Local and international media reported MPCI Secretary-General Guillaume Soro - appointed minister of communication in the new government - as saying that, as a result of the attacks rebel nominees would not travel to the political capital, Yamoussoukro, or the commercial capital, Abidjan, to take up their posts in the government.