Troops loyal to Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara are engaged in fierce gun battles in Abidjan with forces belonging to strongman Laurent Gbagbo in their final push for control of the country.
Internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara's forces swept into the economic capital yesterday.
They demanded an increasingly isolated Laurent Gbagbo hand over power and warned he faced a bloodbath if he did not.
As the embattled leader remained silent, machinegun-fire and heavy artillery resounded in the administrative district of Plateau, according to journalists.
A plume of smoke rose into the sky near the presidential palace and streets were deserted.
A Swedish United Nations employee was shot and killed, possibly by a stray bullet, the Swedish foreign ministry said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has appealed to both sides not to seek 'revenge' for past attacks as support for Gbagbo appeared to crumble.
'The secretary general urges all to exercise maximum restraint, refrain from exacting revenge and place the interests of the whole nation above all else,' a spokesman for Mr Ban said in New York.
Several hundred people have been killed in the aftermath of the presidential election in November.
The UN estimates that 1m people have fled Abidjan fearing a bloodbath.
In the northern suburb of Cocody, fierce fighting broke out around the perimeter of the presidential palace last night.
It was described by one resident as 'the final assault.'
'The shooting doesn't stop. Gbagbo's men are resisting in all their positions,' another Abidjan resident told AFP.
Mr Gbagbo's whereabouts are unknown.
Pro-Ouattara fighters poured into Abidjan yesterday after meeting little resistance in a four-day offensive against the Gbagbo-controlled Ivory Coast army.
The political capital Yamoussoukro and the world's biggest cocoa exporting port of San Pedro fell in quick succession.
They seized the airport and the state television last night, cutting Gbagbo's key communication channels.
UN troops had since taken control of the airport.
Mr Ouattara's government yesterday closed all land, sea and air borders to stop Gbagbo and his allies from fleeing the country, and decreed a nightly curfew until Sunday.
