"The situation is calm but it is a momentary lull and things could degenerate from one moment to the next," warned Ivory Coast armed forces spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel N'Goran Aka on Sunday.

The ceasefire was signed on Saturday by government forces chief General Mathias Doue and by Colonel Michel Gueu, military leader of the west African country's largest rebel group, the Popular Movement for Ivory Coast (MPCI).

"There has been no fighting since Saturday at midnight," MPCI spokesman Antoine Beugre told AFP, saying the "ceasefire was being upheld".

Within hours of the signing, the rebel Popular Movement of Ivory Coast's Far West (MPIGO), which operates near the western border with Liberia, told AFP pro-government forces had launched an attack on Saturday in the western region of Danane.

MPIGO spokesman Guillaume Gbatto alleged the attackers were aiming to retake positions from the rebels in the last few hours before the ceasefire came into force at midnight.

Aka, the armed forces spokesman, confirmed that there had been fighting in the region south of Danane, although he alleged that rebels had launched the attack and did "not seem to feel concerned by the ceasefire".

According to a high-ranking Ivorian army officer, Saturday's violence could be a repeat of attacks carried out in January, when the army took advantage of the two-day lull between the announcement and the signing of an earlier ceasefire to grab control of a rebel-held village south of Danane.

"It's not impossible that they are once more racing against the clock," a military source told AFP.

Ivory Coast's new government of national unity, which includes ministers from the rebel groups, issued a statement on Friday saying the armed forces and the rebels had "agreed to a total cessation of hostilities and an integral ceasefire".

The ceasefire pact covers the whole of the country, including the west, where neighbouring Liberia has been accused of backing the rebels against the former government of President Laurent Gbagbo, a source close to Gbagbo said on Friday.

It also contains a clause that provides for the disarmament of mercenaries and armed groups operating on both sides, the source said.

Under the agreement, the warring parties accept the deployment in the troubled west of the country of peacekeeping troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and some 900 troops from France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler.

SPACE.WIRE