/ 31 January 1999

BISSAU BATTLES RESUME

FIGHTING — light arms fire followed by shelling — broke out on Sunday between Guinea-Bissau government forces loyal to President Joao Bernardo Vieira and army rebels in the capital Bissau, sources in the west African city said.The clashes were the first since a November ceasefire. Thousands have gone to Bissau’s port, controlled by Senegalese troops who moved in last June in a bid to help Vieira quash an uprising led by sacked army chief General Ansumane Mane. The November 1 pact provided for a national unity government and the deployment of regional Ecomog troop, but the Nigerian-led intervention force is financially strapped and currently heavily deployed in embattled Sierra Leone.