Wanton killings end hope of peace

WEARY and frightened villagers straggling from the bush in western Ivory Coast tell of dozens of killings and wanton abuses after a surge of fighting that has soured hopes of peace.

The involvement of warring Liberian tribes, inured to atrocity by years of bloodshed, has made the rebel conflict in this corner of the West African country even more savage and tangled than elsewhere.

It is hard to get a precise toll for recent deaths from the accounts of those limping into the French-protected town of Duekoue two women shot by the road here, five people killed there, another nine at a cocoa farmer's camp in the bush.