Rebels in Ivory Coast advance on Abidjan

The rebels have seized over a dozen towns since beginning their onslaught on Monday, and the fall of the cocoa—exporting port of San Pedro came hours after they took the administrative capital, Yamassoukro, where the fighters did a victory lap as people cheered and clapped.

Internationally recognized Ivory Coast President Allassane Ouattara. File photo: AP.

Rebels fighting to install Ivory Coast’s democratically elected president began their final descent on Abidjan on Thursday, after seizing a key seaport overnight as well as the hometown of the country’s entrenched ruler.

United Nations radio announced that the port of San Pedro was taken late Wednesday. Residents reached by telephone said soldiers firing into the air retreated in trucks as the rebels moved into the town about 186 miles (300 kilometers) west of Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city.

They have faced almost no resistance in their rapid descent, but many fear the army still loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo plans to make a final stand in Abidjan, the country’s economic hub and its de facto capital where the presidential palace is located.

The rebel army is already on the periphery of Abidjan, said a close aide to Alassane Ouattara, who was recognized by governments around the world as the country’s legitimate president after winning last November’s presidential election.

“They will enter the city on multiple fronts, from multiple directions,” said the adviser who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

He also said that overnight they took Mr. Gbagbo’s hometown, the village of Mama, where the former president had built a lavish villa. “The rebels slept in Gbagbo’s bed,” said the adviser.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to demand an immediate end to the escalating violence and impose sanctions on Mr. Gbagbo, who has refused to relinquish the presidency, and his inner circle.

Up to one million people have fled the fighting which several analysts are now calling a civil war and at least 462 people have been killed since the vote.

The two men have vied for the presidency for months, with Mr. Ouattara using his considerable international clout to financially and diplomatically suffocate Mr. Gbagbo. After the final round of diplomatic efforts had failed, the rebels launched a dramatic offensive this week, seizing control of the country from the west, the centre and the east.