Ivory Coast violence spreading

Alassane Dramane Ouattara. Photo / AP

Ivory Coast appeared to have succumbed to full-scale civil war yesterday after six key towns fell to forces opposed to the sitting President. Fighting that has already killed 460 people and forced one million from their homes had earlier been contained to the country's far west and some suburbs of the main city, Abidjan.

But yesterday armed groups swept south of the ceasefire line drawn after the end of the last civil war in 2004, taking several towns in succession. Those fighters support Alassane Ouattara, the former World Bank executive internationally recognised as the winner of November's elections. But his rival, Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent President, has refused to step down.