AFP - The heavy gunfire resumed Saturday in the Abobo neighborhood in Abidjan that families fled after a week of clashes between forces loyal to incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and the armed insurgents who have left Cote d'Ivoire on the verge of explosion.
According to these witnesses, the shooting resumed in early afternoon outside the sector "PK-18" in the heart of the fighting that has turned into a battlefield this northern district supports Alassane Ouattara, recognized head of state by the international community after the disputed November 28 presidential election.
Residents said the firing had almost ceased since Friday but "Baghdad", is now known as Abobo, retained traces of those days of fire and blood.
"This morning I saw bodies, apparently civilians, which no one recovered," he told AFP driver, but did not say when they were killed.
An assessment of the fighting was still impossible to establish, but several witnesses reported clashes very deadly.
"The work goes on" in Abobo, told reporters the General Philippe Mangou, Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces and Security (FDS) loyal to Gbagbo.
Meanwhile, the exodus continued."The area is empty," said a resident after a night under curfew, a measure introduced for the weekend by the Gbagbo regime in the southern half of the country under its control.
"The mini-buses could enter and are attacked" by mothers and their children, told this young woman, herself part of the family join in the Yopougon (west).
Called by the local press "commando invisible" group, including armed with rocket launchers, which attacked the SDS since January in Abobo before intensify activity in recent days, continues to generate queries.
For SDS, it is composed of elements infiltrated the "rebellion" of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) holding the north since the failed coup of 2002 and joined forces with Alassane Ouattara in the beginning of the crisis resulting from November ballot.
But the camp is Ouattara denies any involvement, saying it is people who took up arms or SDS defectors.
In the political capital Yamoussoukro theater for the first time fighting with heavy weapons on the night of Thursday to Friday, calm had returned Saturday.
The city "timidly resumed its activities, many shops are closed and there is little busy the market," he told the morning a local journalist.
In the "Great West" unstable region near Liberia, the situation was uncertain following the decision by the FN from two localities on the borders of the southern zone.FDS assured Saturday having driven the enemy.
The past week has given an almost surreal to mediation efforts led by the African Union to resolve the crisis, which has already killed at least 315 deaths according to UN and driven tens of thousands of Ivorians to flee the country.
Four Heads of State - Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania), Jacob Zuma (South Africa), Idriss Deby (Chad) and Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) - Ivorian rivals met earlier this week in Abidjan.
Charged initially to develop solutions "binding" on the parties by the end of February, they will consult again on March 4 in Nouakchott. "We're not out of the woods", agreed by the Mauritanian president.
