Five representatives of rebel groups in Ivory Coast have taken up their ministerial positions as part of a peace deal aiming at ending months of civil war. The five officials took office at a ceremony in the government-controlled main city of Abidjan. Four other rebels, including the leader of the main Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast, MPCI, Guillaume Soro, who are to become government ministers, did not show up for the official ceremony. As preparations for rebels to join the government took place, there was renewed fighting between government and rebel forces in western Ivory Coast. At least two of the remaining rebel ministers still face prison sentences for deserting government forces during the rebellion which broke out last September, says a BBC correspondent in Ivory Coast. The president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, said on Friday that the rebels should take up the places they been offered in the new government. Rebel leaders of the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) said they had recaptured the western town of Zouan-Hounien in renewed fighting with government forces over the last few days. Full Story
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