ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A six-year truce between former Ivorian rebels and government troops fractured Thursday in the west of the country, a U.N. official said.
Civil war in 2002 divided the country between pro-government factions and rebel groups. A November election was intended to unite the country, though an ongoing political impasse is pushing the country back toward civil war.
A spokesman for the United Nations described the situation to the BBC as "worrying," saying fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in the west of the country.
The African Union has been trying to find a solution to the political crisis, though international observers say the condition in the Ivory Coast is fast approaching civil war.
Incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refuses to give up power despite a U.N. Security Council Resolution endorsing rival candidate Alassane Ouattara as the leader of the world's largest cocoa-producing country.
Amnesty International in a report this week said it heard accounts of mass rapes and killings in parts of the country. Human Rights Watch said it documented at least 11 deaths since Feb. 19 at the hands of Gbagbo's supporters.
"To prevent a return to a civil war, cooler heads need to prevail on both sides of the divide," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.
