Cote d'Ivoire Rebel Leader Declares Ceasefire Over

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 03, 2003

Cote d'Ivoire Rebel Leader Declares Ceasefire Over

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A Cote d'Ivoire rebel group's leader on Sunday declared the world's top cocoa producer's ceasefire was over after 20 people were killed in a government gunships' attack on a border town near Liberia at the weekend.

Once the armed helicopters started bombarding on the town of Bin-Houye, Felix Doh, head of the Popular Movement of Ivory Coast's Far West said: "I think the ceasefire is over."

Doh said the Saturday helicopters' bombarding had left 20 people dead and several others injured.

But the Cote d'Ivoire government had no immediate reaction to Doh's claims.

Cote d'Ivoire has been split in two for five months with rebels in control of the north and the south still under the authority of the government.

Cote d'Ivoire's civil war was broke out after an uprising on Sept. 19 which later turned into a full-scale coup attempt to oust President Gbagbo with the Iovry Coast Patriotic Movement as the largest rebel group which hold more than half of the country in the north.

As the situation in the west African country became more complicated, France has stationed more than 3,000 troops in its former colony to protect foreign nationals and police a ceasefire line.

Thousands of foreigners have fled the city in the past two weeks after anti-French riots erupted when news of the rebel cabinet posts in the Paris peace deal leaked out in late January.

The five-month war in what was once seen as a "beacon of stability" has already killed thousands of people and displaced more than one million others.

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