HEAVY gunfire echoed across the Congo capital of Brazzaville despite an announcement in Paris by President Chirac's office of a ceasefire agreement by warring parties, Brazzaville residents said.
"The firing is getting more intense, both from heavy weapons and small arms," one resident said last night.
A broadcast on Brazzaville's main state radio frequency declared that the militia of the former president, Mr Denis Sassou Nguesso, controlled most of the capital.
Mr Sassou Nguesso's followers have been fighting the troops of President Pascal Lissouba for five days in a political and ethnic conflict which exploded as the country approached a presidential election scheduled for July 27th.
"Sassou's forces have repelled the forces of Lissouba and are controlling most of the city," said the broadcast. "All police posts are under the control of Sassou."
The broadcast appeared to mean that the state radio building in the city centre had been captured by Mr Sassou Nguesso's militia but there was no direct confirmation of this and the frequency might have been used by another transmitter.
Bodies of dead fighters and civilians killed in crossfire lay untouched on the streets where they had been shot. Fighters traded rocket fire, with one shell landing across the Congo River in Kinshasa, capital of Mr Laurent Kabila's Democratic Republic of the Congo. It exploded harmlessly in the garden of a Nigerian diplomat, witnesses said.
President Chirac's spokeswoman said Mr Chirac had received verbal agreement for a truce in telephone conversations with Mr Lissouba and Mr Sassou Nguesso.
Mr Chirac asked the two adversaries "to decide on a ceasefire as soon as possible and accept the mediation of the Gabonese President, Mr Omar Bongo to seek a political solution and he obtained their agreement in principle," the spokeswoman, Ms Catherine Colonna, told reporters.
France, the former colonial power, yesterday sent more troops to Brazzaville, bringing the French force there to 1,200 men. The French military also airlifted more than 350 foreign nationals out of the embattled city.
The United States called for a ceasefire in Brazzaville and said it believed the presidential elections could still be held on schedule.
"We believe in very strong terms that the government and the rebel forces ought to agree to an immediate ceasefire and then to a restoration of the constitution as it was in power before the fighting broke out," the State Department said.
If there can be a ceasefire, and talks between the government and the rebel movement, it may still be possible to implement the presidential elections on the 27th of July," the spokesman, Mr Nicholas Burns, told a news briefing. He said the US was trying to reduce its current embassy staff of 28 diplomats to 15.
Mr Bums said the US embassy was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and some small arms fire over the weekend, but it was not thought the fire was aimed at the mission. He gave no indication of the extent of the damage. He said about 200 private Americans were believed to be in Congo-Brazzaville, including some 75 in the capital.
Earlier Mayor Bernard Kolelas, a mediator in the conflict, called a truce as rival political and ethnic militias fought for a fifth successive day.
Mr Kolelas said a ceasefire would "allow the putting in place. . . of conditions favouring a return to peace", international mediation and a buffer force drawn from parties implicated in the unrest.
"The conditions for an intervention force are now in place above all with the presence in Brazzaville of troops from friendly countries which would not be able to allow Congo to sink into chaos," Mr Kolelas said.
In 1993 more than 2,000 people were killed in clashes between political and ethnic militias in the capital following disputed parliamentary elections.
France yesterday airlifted more than 350 foreign nationals out of the city, where rival political and ethnic militias fought for a fifth successive day.
In Paris, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said the latest re-inforcements came half from mainland France and half from Chad.
Fugitives from the pre-election fighting say the current fighting appears to be more widespread than in 1993, when 2,000 people were killed in clashes between political and ethnic militias in the capital following disputed parliamentary elections.
French troops evacuated foreigners to their military base and four French military Transall planes left the city carrying about 90 people each and headed for Libreville in Gabon.
Diplomats said around 300 French and other foreign nationals at two hotels in Brazzaville were waiting to be evacuated.
A new contingent of 150 French troops arrived in the former French colony's capital yesterday, to join 450 already there. France said it was increasing to 800 the number of troops it was sending.