Awwal 21, 1432 H/Feb 24, 2011, SPA -- Sporadic gunfire rang out in an Abidjan neighbourhood and terrified residents fled with their belongings, witnesses said on Thursday, as Ivory Coast's post-election crisis turned increasingly violent, according to Reuters. Fighting also erupted in the west of the country, according to army and United Nations peacekeeping officials, in what appeared to be an escalation of the power struggle. Clashes between forces loyal to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara, who won a Nov. 28 presidential election, according to U.N. certified results, have intensified this week. Residents in Abobo, a pro-Ouattara stronghold of the main city Abidjan which has seen the heaviest of three days of clashes, said shooting rang out early on Thursday after a night of relative calm. The increasingly deadly tussle for control of the once prosperous West African state is the outcome of an election that was supposed to reunite it after a 2002-3 war, but has simply worsened divisions. "The shooting has started again. We hear shots and explosions," Tiemoko Souala told Reuters by telephone from central Abobo. "It is difficult to put up with this fear," he added. A Reuters reporter on the road into Abobo saw scores of people streaming out of the neighbourhood to flee the fighting, which is in the northern outskirts of Abidjan, carrying suitcases and plastic bags of their belongings on their heads. ICE cocoa prices hit a new 32-year high of $3,645 a tonne in early trading, mainly on the tensions. Another witness reported shooting on Thursday near an area called PK18 when a helicopter flew overhead, but said it did not last very long. "We quickly returned to our houses. There is no one in the streets," said Abdoulaye Kone. Heavy fighting erupted in Abobo on Wednesday afternoon, after pro-Gbagbo forces reinforced their presence there. A military source said between 10 and 15 Gbagbo loyalists were killed in Abobo on Tuesday in an ambush by gunmen. -- SPA
